Tort Law
Wetzel Law Firm: Retract ‘Weasel’ or Else
Posted Oct 25, 2007, 11:24 am CST
By Martha Neil
Threatened with a potential defamation suit, two individuals have apparently retracted their claimed characterization of a Spokane, Wash.-area law firm formerly known as "Wetzel & Wetzel" as "Weasel & Weasel."
After one of the two allegedly used the term at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Bayview, Idaho, and another allegedly did so "at a different forum," according to the Spokesman-Review (reg. req.), attorney Kevin P. Holt sent a letter to them and the Chamber on behalf of Wetzel, Wetzel, Bredeson & Holt, as the merged firm is now known. In the letter, Holt demanded a public retraction, contending that there was a history of unsubstantiated attacks on the firm that included "downright mean-spirited lies."
Although the firm had tried in the past "to rise above the petty insults cast about by the venomous minority in Bayview," Holt wrote, the public mischaracterization of the firm's name apparently was the last straw.
At the Chamber's next monthly meeting, its president read the demanded "letter of contrition" from the two individuals involved, the newspaper notes.