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Julian Assange Frivolously Sued by Insane Person: What It Means

A crazy man from Florida is suing Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange for 150 million "dollors" for "serious personan injury."


A man in Florida is suing the Wikileaks founder, alleged sexual deviant, and international man of mystery Julian Assange. The reason for the suit? "Serious personan injury" (sic) due to living in "fear of being on the brink of Nucliar WAR" (sic). The sum? 150 million "dollors" (sic).

Depression? Stress? Fear of a stroke? Clarity Law Blog explains what this suit (PDF) actually means for the impish data disseminator (and other targets of similarly frivolous lawsuits):

Should Assange laugh and ignore the lawsuit? It depends. Filing a claim is a two-step process. First, Crazyman files with the clerk of court (4 mistyped pages and ~$200), and then he has to serve the court papers on Assange. Even if Assange reads about Crazyman online, American requirements for due process aren’t satisfied until the written complaint is physically delivered to Assange—no easy task. (In the movies, a fake FedEx person saunters up and asks, “Hey man, can you sign for this package?”) To bring in WikiLeaks itself as a defendant, Crazyman has to serve WikiLeaks’ (nonexistent) registered agent.

If Crazyman succeeds in serving process on Assange, Assange must respond. If he doesn’t, a default judgment will be entered—it’s just like forfeiting a softball match. Once Crazyman has a default judgment in hand, he can go after Assange’s U.S. bank accounts (now or in the future). Banks don’t care if the claim is ridiculous; a court order is a court order.

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Translation: Getting sued is really awful, regardless of the suit's merit. Anyone want to weigh in on whether this is just an attempt to lure Assange into the States? Probably not, as he could likely send lawyers in his stead.

photo (cc) via Flickr user New Media Days

Thanks, Cara!


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