In article , Dan wrote:
DABEAR wrote:
Juan Jimenez wrote:

As a WHAT? LOL! Does that include being investigated by the FBI for making
threatening calls to entities that happen to be associated with ANN?


Made a copy of this one. Big mistake, Juan. Took your lying too far.
I made contact with the FBI in Denver twenty minutes ago and have the
procedure to determine if any such investigation is underway.

Your libelous allegations are denied in their entirety.

To prove libel damages do you not have to prove injury?

In point of legal fact, "No."

How were you
injured by the rants of yawn on RAH?

There are three separate lines of reasoning to support a defamation claim:
1) the hypothetical 'reasonable person', would give credence to the
utterances, and you would suffer (and probably have suffered) harm
thereby.
2) "actual" harm can be shown. e.g. somebody told you they wouldn't do
business because of what 'so-and-so said'.
3) Certain types of assertations that are considered to be 'automatically'
defamatory, unless one is in possession of ironclad proof of the truth
thereof. This is a special situation, known as "Libel per se". One
example is that of stating that a _married_ woman is "unfaithful".

"Type 3" claims _rarely_ go to trial -- defendant's lawyer advises that
defendant does not have a possible defense, and urges settlement. On the
rare case where it does go to trial, essentially the only issue is 'how
much' plaintiff is going to get.

'Type 2' claims are comparatively *uncommon*. Finding the party who will
testify that they believed, _and_acted_upon_, the defamation is very
difficult.


The majority of actual defamation actions are based on something that
was said publicly, in a manner/forum such that it is deemed reasonably
believable. "Background of", and "familiarity with" the parties making
the statements and/or those named therein, is -not- a prerequisite for
evaluation of the 'believability' of the statement.

Additional note: yawn's habit of 'posing the matter as a question', with
an 'ill-defined referent' does *not* evade liability. He can claim till
he's blue in the face that he "wasn't referring to "any actions involving
so-and-so" with that 'question' -- but it is a matter of what the 'reasonable
man' would believe he meant, not what he -says- he meant.


Yawn _has_ 'crossed the line' of actionable defamation in his postings to
this newsgroup, *many* times.

He does it, because he believes he can 'get away with it', since his victims
don't have the 'spare resources' to haul him into court -- and he's close
enough to "judgement proof" that no attorney would take a case on contingency
basis.

I'm not a lawyer, but I saw one on TV. As much as I'd like to see
yawn receive some wall to wall counsellings if I sat on your jury I'd
vote against you based on what has been presented here thus far.

Based on _that_, you wouldn't get on the jury in the first place.
You've already decided you know what the law is, without listening to
the judge's instructions.