Stock photo, blog post by John Hoff
Word reaches me during R&R leave from Afghanistan that my Motion For Judgment As A Matter Of Law in the Jerry Moore v. John Hoff a/k/a Johnny Northside "to tell the truth" lawsuit has been DENIED.
I am in contact with my attorney, Paul Godfread, about this.
We will appeal.
(Do Not Click "Read More")
18 comments:
Maybe you should start asking for donations for your kids college. I say this because you are not going to win this and you will owe $60k. Of course you'll probably file a BK but no student loans from your credit eh?
LMAO, because your COA appeal will be denied too because chances of winning at the COA are nil. After reading the Judges ruling, she makes your intend pretty clear and the Justices of the COA will agree.
You made the bed John, you use your blog to harass and attack people because you get some sick enjoyment out of it. You seriously need some mental health counseling before you get into some real trouble.
Clearly this case in not about the First Amendment. Here is a quote from the Judge's ruling. This is a case about John Hoff not liking Jerry Moore and getting him fired from his job. Blogging is not the reason for the jury verdict, and no appeals court will agree with your behavior and rule in your favor:
“Defendant argues that the record before the jury did not contain sufficient evidence regarding Plaintiff’s interference claims. On the contrary, the Court heard direct testimony regarding Defendant’s involvement in getting Plaintiff fired by contacting leaders at the University of Minnesota and threatening to launch a negative public relations campaign if Plaintiff remained in their employment.”
You are and were wrong, and you need to accept the consequences for your malicious behavior.
To the first anonymous:
That should be an apostrophe on "kids."
First of all, I don't know Jerry Moore. What I've read about him certainly doesn't make me want to like him, and if everything he's been accused on doing is true, the U was probably unwise to have hired him.
Secondly, I fully support John Hoff's stated intentions, and I'd support the man himself if he stuck to them as he claims.
But as far as I understand, (and I've been following this case very closely for obvious reasons) the problem in this case is that Mr. Hoff is presenting himself as the victim, and claiming that his First Amendment rights are being suppressed, when all the documents in the case clearly show otherwise.
Mr. Moore's lawsuit only had a little bit to do with what John Hoff wrote about him on this blog. That part of the lawsuit was not upheld. The part that was upheld, and has now been upheld on appeal, and will be upheld as far as Mr. Hoff chooses to appeal it, concerns what Mr. Hoff did above and beyond his well-established protected public truth-telling.
It's a clever bit of obfuscation to paint this as a First Amendment case, when Mr. Hoff's First Amendment rights have been upheld and aren't part of the case anymore.
The same issues are going to come up when Peter Rickmeyer (sp?) gets his case against Hoff to court, if that ever happens. What's public information about Mr. Rickmeyer is distasteful beyond belief, and it appears that what Mr. Hoff has written about him is also substantially true. That doesn't give Mr. Hoff, or anybody, carte blanche to persecute someone, no matter how much we might sympathize. The cases against Mr. Hoff are not First Amendment cases. They're similar to stalking cases, and in at least the first one, the complaints have been upheld.
Anyway, I hope Mr. Hoff's antics don't hamper the efforts of North Side activist residents to clean up that area.
We'll all be the better if they can root out the blight over there. There are plenty of people over there doing just that, within the law. They need our support.
Didn't you post all of that, verbatim, on the comment thread at the Strib?
So are you saying it should be worth damages to say, for example, "WTF were you doing hiring this guy who was involved in mortgage fraud to research mortgages?"
And for the U to actually say, "WTF WERE we thinking. This was a mistake. We should remedy it."
Like, tell all the TRUTH you want but god forbid the truth should make any difference?
john, you deserve every bit of this. take your medicine.
That's not what my lawyer and the amicus brief tell me. No thanks.
For the record, I did not copy/paste my own post from the Star-Trib website onto your blog. Somebody else did this. And whoever did that added a couple of things I didn't say, and wouldn't have said. I'm sorry about this. I'm not squeamish to talk about public information regarding you in the same public forum distributing that info about you. That's a different context. I wouldn't troll you on your own blog. I'm sorry it appears to you, reasonably enough, that I did.
-"swmnguy"
You caused me to lose my job by sending a message to my employer. The only reason I didn't sue you was because my lawyer said you had no assets and it wasn't worth the trouble.
Now I'm thinking I'll call Jill Clark and sue you just for the fun of it.
I found a great job and can afford to pay her and the fees. Seeing you lose again will be worth every penny.
Such a ruckus. Nothin like a good gaggle of twatty ruckus rousers to re-affirm your purpose. Keep it up. Awesome. Truth. Balls.
What a ruckus. Nothing like a gaggle of twatty ruckus rousing folks to reaffirm that you're on the right path. Get it. Truth, grit and balls. AWESOME.
Yeah tell the truth, and let it make a difference, but tell the truth and leave it at that. You went far beyond simply telling the truth as far as I've read.
Looks to me like the U made a big mistake hiring Jerry Moore and JNS graphically pointed this out to them.
JNS actually did both the U and the public a favor by alerting us and limiting our exposure to the potentially scandalous repercussions of putting a fox in the hen house.
If anything that JNS said was untrue, then Moore has a right to sure for slander. Otherwise, his beef really should be with the U of M for firing him unjustly.
When you break a public trust you should expect a little malicious contempt. That's why public embezzlers relocate.
Let’s set aside the first ammendment issue and just look at the other claim – that Hoff had no business telling the U of M about Moore’s history. Moore was involved with mortgage fraud. This is information which was, or should have been, material to his hiring and ability to do his job researching mortgage fraud.
What if this ruling stands? Let’s say I was working for a day care center, and they hired someone I knew to have abused children. Do I tell, protect the children at the center (and the center itself from liability), but expose myself to litigation, or do I not tell and potentially let children get hurt and the center get sued?
It's funny you should mention the day care center example. I was talking to somebody and I used this very analogy.
Say somebody is working at a day care center. To make the example even closer to our own case, let's say it's a GOVERNMENT OPERATED daycare center, like the U is a public institution.
So somebody (let's call him GERRY) is working at this day care center, and this person was issued a subpoena by the courts because he was wanted as a witness in a high profile child molestation case that put a man away for years and years.
Turns out our man GERRY never showed up for questioning but for whatever reason the police didn't pursue it. But one of the individuals KNOWN to be involved in the molestation scandal--let's call him SIETMAN--will tell anybody who cares to listen, "It was GERRY who set up the whole deal and brought the molesters to the place where the children were." Somebody even tried to name GERRY in a civil lawsuit, but GERRY got dismissed on a technicality....
You know what? I'm not going to waste all this creative juice on a mere comment. I think this is going to become a BLOG POST and let the shit hit what fans it may.
Johnny wrote at 7:27 PM:
"Like, tell all the TRUTH you want but god forbid the truth should make any difference?"
The word "god" should be capitalized and spelled as "God."
Considering the lack of respect you show to other figures of authority, it does not surprise me that you would diss God.
So what now is the status of your appeal? Do you have an appeal pending at the Court of Appeals? Has it been denied, or were you referring to a review request (by whatever name) from the District Court?
Another Minnesota defamation case has become similar to yours in that the plaintiff's defamation suit was dismissed, and the plaintiff has appealed that interference with business should be separately adjudicated.
I'm following both cases.
See:
http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2011/60000-ruling-against-truthful-blogger-tests-limits-first-amendment
http://macsnc.courts.state.mn.us/ctrack/view/publicCaseMaintenance.do?csNameID=71108
http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/david-mckee-v-dennis-laurion
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110629/03411314906/doctor-plans-to-appeal-ruling-that-said-complaining-about-his-bedside-manner-was-not-defamation.shtml#comments
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