Cape-Cod Blogger sued; Cape-Cod remains humorless

MetaBoston brings us the story of a Cape-Cod blogger and an anonymous, mud slinging sidekick who have found themselves in the midst of a law suit for violations of Massachusetts’ anti-SLAPP law, M.G.L. c. 231, § 59H.

Peter Robbins, author of the Robbins Report, a blog that appears on the popular community website Cape Cod Today, and an anonymous commenter have been sued over statements they made criticizing a group of Barnstable, MA residents who opposed the dredging of Barnstable Harbor. The case raises a host of interesting questions, including whether the statements at issue are protected opinions and the potential applicability of Massachusetts’ anti-SLAPP and retraction statutes.

The dispute arose over a March 11 post by Robbins entitled Barnstable Harbor: Filling in and falling in, in which he criticized a number of individuals, including Joseph Dugas and his lawyer Paul Revere III, who had challenged orders issued by the Town of Barnstable Conservation Commission and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that authorized dredging in Barnstable Harbor (not surprising for a community that is so intimately tied to the water, dredging in the harbor is quite a controversial topic).

On July 7, 2008, Dugas and Revere filed a defamation lawsuit against Robbins and “John Doe,” an anonymous commenter on the site who posted under the pseudonym “Noggin.” Plaintiffs’complaint alleges that the following statements by Robbins were false and defamatory:
• A reference to Dugas as “the infamous sh*t stirring Joe Dugas.”
• A description of Revere as “Paul ‘the dredge isn’t coming’ Revere.”
• The assertion that the “actions of Dugas and others represented by Revere with regard to the ‘litigation’ were malicious and not brought in good faith.”
• The claim that the reason the harbor wasn’t being dredged was because of the plaintiffs’ legal challenges.

Wow. I’ve gained a sort of admitedly pathetic, local notoriety based mostly on calling people giant flaming douche bags and these guys end up in court for ‘shit stirrer’? If anyone ever deserved the title of giant flaming douche bag, certainly it would be this Joe Dugas cat. One has to wonder if Mr Dugas even realizes that by filling this suit his name will forever be linked with the term shit stirrer online, where previously it would have been lost to the archives of a local community website. This is what we in the industry (the online jackass industry) refer to fondly as ‘doing it wrong‘.

Great write up and break down of the case at the Citizen Media Law Project.

And the Globe coverage can be found here