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Re: Garden Design

Larry,

I'm not a lawyer (perhaps there's a lawyer in the group who could comment further, you could check with your lawyer friend, or we should ask one for further advice?) but I believe the two key words in your e-mail about liable and slander are "truth" and "malicious." (My understanding of this is based on being the wife of a public official. As you can imagine, in elections sometimes things are said or written which are questionable, at best. In the last local election, some of the candidates had occasion to check with their party's lawyers about libel and slander. What follows is gleaned from that experience.)

In the pond case, for the company to bring suit they obviously felt that there were untruth's spoken or written about the company, that there was a deliberate effort to damage the company, and that it was done with a clear malicious intent. Certainly I think we all would agree that hacking into a company's computer system to get the names of its customers (presumably to contact them) is not a friendly act intended to benefit the company! And from your very brief description of the defendants' activities, evidence very well may exist of intent to harm, i.e., malicious intent.

If a group of people, such as this one, exchanges information, for example, about clients who don't pay invoices in time (or at all) with the purpose of informing others to be sure to have written contracts with or to be careful in dealing with the publisher, that is not malicious -- it's an exchange of information -- as long as it is true. Even if the publisher does suffer some harm (for example, no one in the group will write for it again), as long as there was no provable malicious intent and the writer spoke the truth, as it pertains to him/her, then the publisher has no grounds for a libel or slander case. And malicious intent is exceedingly hard to prove.

However, if that same group of people exchanges information based on rumor, not on personal factual and provable experience, or take other actions (such as hacking into the publisher's computer system, as in the pond case) with the definite, provable intent to cause harm to or damage the publisher in some way -- that's malicious and, thus, libelous or slanderous.

As a writers' group, GWL does need to exchange information which is useful in working, negotiating, or otherwise dealing with publishers, editors, illustrators, and other publishing professionals. That's one of the purposes of the group. However, I believe the members need to stick to their own personal, provable experiences with a publisher, as opposed to passing on rumors which they heard from the writer down the street. If the group sticks to the truth, as each member knows it to be, and if there is no malicious intent to harm a publisher or any of its employees, then there most likely would be no problem in discussing experiences with the publisher.

I would hate to think that any of us intended to deliberately harm any publisher with whom we have had dealings, even when those dealings have been unsatisfactory. We may be unhappy (and certainly there is reason to be unhappy with some publishers), but even with an unsatisfactory publisher, there's always the chance that a change in management or ownership will change that publisher into a real jewel. (Or, conversely, change a jewel of a publisher into a disaster!)

Lina
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