I got a fancy letter the other day, so I open it in this video.
Cool. I’m being sued for over a million dollars by a crackpot. Again.
Time to fire up the GoFundMe page again. Help out with our legal costs!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is general commentary. It is not legal advice.
(1) Service appears to have been improper under Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 4. Mail service is allowed… but service via forwarding is not, especially when forwarded only informally and not by your request from an old address. Mail service is effective if and only if addressed correctly, and in this instance to a residential address. (Side notice: I would explicitly tell the University’s counsel’s office that I do not authorize them to accept service for me. They shouldn’t anyway, but this is protective.)
(2) 28 U.S.C. § 1927 may apply; so, too, may Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 11. These are for counsel to consider (the old imprecation “he who represents himself has a fool for a client” goes exponentially for anything related to sanctions and attorney’s fees).
(3) I would contact the ACLU (regardless) and the AAUP (if I was a member).
Is this a Popehat sort of situation?
Screw this clown so much. Falling out with the progressive side of the atheist community put him on the only side with real money. He should be giving PZ a million dollars just to show off. He can party with Jeffrey Epstein now if he feels like it. Damages my god damn ass.
First off, I reject misaddressed packages. Period, end of story. Considering one of my prior occupations, that’s a great idea on how not to have to remodel my home and body.
Secondly, an affirmative defense against a finding against you is, you never were served and the serving was entirely defective.
Once properly served, I will respond, otherwise, I’ll spend a few hundred dollars in billable hours to thwart their idiocy.
Oh, customarily delivered means 100% always? A negative response left a few minutes before a judge orders refiling. I’ve actually done that one, didn’t end well for the plaintiff.
Being doxed is a recoverable injury. Indeed, one can recover damages from being doxed. I can neither confirm, nor deny such a recovery, due to settlement terms.
I’m rather decent at contract law and criminal law, a bit better, but anyone who represents themselves, have fools for a client.
So, we know that his “evidence” is his masturbation – alone.
And an idiot who has chronic diarrhea of the oral orifice.
I definitely want to share my name and support. My financial contribution is small but my respect is great.
Pete Shanks
Santa Cruz, CA
I donated a 100 USD before to the defense fund against Carrier, and I think I’ll be doing so again.
I used to be a paying Patreon for Carrier, long ago, but not for a long time now. I just send an email asking him WTF he’s doing, playing on my former cred of paying for his work, hoping that’s enough to buy even a modicum of attention. I explain using simple words in a sentence or two that he has no chance to win, and his earlier lawyer was incompetent (I especially loved when they filed something that requested an Ohio judge to toll the statute of limitations of other states, and I included this specific example in the email). I asked him “Why?”, asking “revenge?”, “thinking that you’ll win aka delusion?”, “personal justice by costing them lots of money with a frivolous lawsuit?”. I then encouraged him to pull his head out of his ass.
I don’t expect an answer, but if I get one, I’ll probably share it here.
PS: Can I share it here? I assume that there’s no expectation of privacy and so I can share it here on the unlikely chance that he responds.
Updates!
Carrier did indeed reply to my email. He basically doubles down, claims he has the necessary evidence to show legal-malice for the public-person defamation standard, claims that he has come upon even more evidence to make this claim, claims that he can prevail in other states on equitable tolling to extend the statute of limitations, and even claims that it was a legally good move to ask an Ohio judge to toll the statute of limitations of other states. No lurid sexual details, thankfully.
So, again, it’s either: 1- a dozen other people that I equally trust in the movement are willfully, knowingly lying in concert, or 2- Carrier is just wrong, and I know which I consider to be far more likely. I wish I knew what the fuck was going on with Carrier. It’s hard to imagine that he’s doing it for the money. Must be some pride thing, principle thing, and/or vindictiveness thing.
@EnlightenmentLiberal #7
Good on you for contacting him. It’s 100% an ego trip, coupled with a strong sense of entitlement and pigheaded cluelessness. If you check out Rebecca Watson’s video on this, where she reads the entire email exchange between Carrier and Heina (no lurid sex details there, although she does mention one of the other situations before that), that’s a perfect example of the extent of it: he actually considers that to be evidence in his defence, when it shows: 1) unwilingness to listen to what a woman is telling him, he can’t take a hint i.e the originally mentioned boundary-pushing behaviour. 2) it’s painfully obvious how that could translate to harassment in another situation, for example he literally says he won’t mention something if the other person doesn’t want him to and two emails later he’s writing several more paragraphs on it 3) His egotism: everything’s about him and his boner and how awkward it makes him feel. 4) his complete unwillingness to ever be wrong: it’s full of gaslighting and handwringing about a woman’s perception of him.
It’s such a shame, because unlike some others here, I still think that Carrier is brilliant even now in his areas of expertise, and also because previously, he seemed to be, at times, a strong force for good in the atheist movement. I’ve met him several times in person, and seen him engage with other knowledgeable people on ancient history matters in way that I do not believe can be faked. It’s unfortunate that I seem to be such a bad judge of character.
PS: I totally agree with PZ and Carrier himself that the Jesus myth argument doesn’t matter, and shouldn’t be brought up when arguing with a Christian, for all of the reasons that PZ mentions, which Carrier also mentions, and more.
I respectfully suggest that no one discuss here, in public, any defense not immediately apparent from PZ’s video. It’s not that it’s wrong — it’s that a public discussion can make things harder for counsel until counsel has determined a strategy.
Please remember that Heina is non-binary, though they get read as female a lot so the perception of them being a woman surely played into this, but we shouldn’t ignore their boundaries just because they have to deal with misogyny and that sort of casual disrespect anyway.
+++
I’m going to put up an auction similar to Marcus’ in the next days. Lass “cutting edge” but a good way for people to chip in who need to combine a present for their loved one with a donation for the defence fund.