DCUM Threatened with Legal Action Regarding Dr. Alalouf

[jsteele]

As a result of the thread I deleted earlier today, Dr. Alalouf has unleashed his attorney on us. Here is the letter we received:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/alalouf.pdf

Here is my response:

Congratulations Ms. McShery! You have the honor of being the first of your profession to contact me with threats of legal action. Ironically, you are somewhat behind the curve as several hours ago, the only thread containing the messages to which you refer was deleted. Subsequent to receiving your letter, I discovered another thread has been started. I am considering how to address that situation, but am not comfortable setting the precedent that my decisions can be influenced by letters such as yours. So, until such time as I decide otherwise, the new thread stays.

Just so we understand each other, I conduct all DCUM business completely in the open. Therefore, I will be posting your letter, along with future correspondence, to the website. I am sure that your threats of legal action against a volunteer parenting website will do wonders for your client's reputation.

[Anonymous]

this is not threatening DC urban mom, but the posters that are attacking Dr. A and his wife. Reread the last paragraph.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:this is not threatening DC urban mom, but the posters that are attacking Dr. A and his wife. Reread the last paragraph.

Technically speaking, the last paragraph says "I look forward to hearing from you quickly". But, the penultimate paragraph says, "...we will be forced to take action on Dr. Alalouf's behalf to obtain your subscriber information..." Unless by "action" they mean that they will send a big guy named Guido over to talk to me, I assume it will be legal action, and it will be against Maria and me. So, I believe my original post is correct.

[Anonymous]

Actually, I think it would be a subpoena for documents and records, which isn't really legal action against you and Maria, but it would still be a pain in the ass.

I do think people should be careful about what they say about identified individuals in this community. Actually, I propose a rule: anyone who wants to start a discussion about an identified individual should have to identify themselves. If they don't feel strongly enough about it to put their name on it, maybe it shouldn't be there in the first place.

[Anonymous]

If you do have to turn over documents and records, would you (be able to) limit it to those related to that thread only? If broader than that, then I'm not comfortable posting, even anonomously, on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

I can certainly understand your not wanting to seem to give in to threats by taking down a thread in reaction to receiving a lawyer's letter, but I think that the decision that you made to delete the initial thread was a sound one and would think that it makes sense to continue to apply that decision consistently by deleting the new thread as well. I've got no stake in this fight, but the anonymous venom to a named individual (whom I'd never heard of before the thread) and his family does disturb me, doesn't add anything to DCUM, and doesn't fit the standards that you try to model here. Anyway - your call, obviously, but my "vote" (I know, I don't have one) would be to take down the new thread as well for the same reasons you took down the first.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:If you do have to turn over documents and records, would you (be able to) limit it to those related to that thread only? If broader than that, then I'm not comfortable posting, even anonomously, on DCUM.

I have no idea what I would be required to do. Recently, Google was ordered to turn over usage information about any user who ever watched any YouTube video. After some negotiations with the plaintiff, Viacom, Google got it reduced to viewers of specific videos (that's from memory, the agreement could have been somewhat different).

One thing I can say is that our logs are rotated on a regular basis. Once they are gone, they're gone. One irony is that I deleted the most problematic thread before I received the letter from the lawyer. So, I now have no way of knowing who posted those messages.

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeff,

I read a bit of tha thread- but just wanted to post sending some support- you are being put in a poor spot- I personally think it's ridiculous anyone in the public profession would dare to sue. There are many sites that rate dr's etc. and contain a lot of details- hey- not all experiences are positive. If a professional has an issue with patients not thinking well of their practice- they should reconsider what they are doing and fix it. I know my regular doctors (ob, pediatrician, ent) aside from my thinking very highly of them- there are no negative posts that i have seen since they are truly great doctors. we're very lucky

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:I can certainly understand your not wanting to seem to give in to threats by taking down a thread in reaction to receiving a lawyer's letter, but I think that the decision that you made to delete the initial thread was a sound one and would think that it makes sense to continue to apply that decision consistently by deleting the new thread as well. I've got no stake in this fight, but the anonymous venom to a named individual (whom I'd never heard of before the thread) and his family does disturb me, doesn't add anything to DCUM, and doesn't fit the standards that you try to model here. Anyway - your call, obviously, but my "vote" (I know, I don't have one) would be to take down the new thread as well for the same reasons you took down the first.

One thing I have consistently acted against is sock puppetry. I have also tended to remove anonymous posts that attack named individuals. I deleted the earlier thread because there was considerable sock puppetry and attacks on a named individual not party to Board of Dental Examiners agreement. I have split the difference with the new thread. There hasn't been any identifiable sock puppetry and I've deleted the messages involving the named individual not party to the affair. However, I have no problem with people discussing publicly available information, though I was sick of the topic long ago myself (which is why I hadn't read any messages in that thread before yesterday).

[Anonymous]

There has to be some lawyers on this site who know this part of the law much better than I do. The laws that deal with message boards are actually part of a Telecommunications Act I believe.

Do you own the server and services that hosts this site? If not, and you are paying someone else to host this site, then I believe it is that service provider who would be compelled to ask you the site owner to provide the information but I also believe that the service provider can legally deny the request as long as the request is not from a law enforcement agency, etc.

It could likely be argued that because Dr. Alalouf could be considered a "involunatry public figure" that his wife who apparently was employed by the practice and by her association to the doctor is considered a "involuntary public figure" also thereby removing the ability to make a claim for defamation.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:/quote]

One thing I can say is that our logs are rotated on a regular basis. Once they are gone, they're gone. One irony is that I deleted the most problematic thread before I received the letter from the lawyer. So, I now have no way of knowing who posted those messages.

Could you please explain what this means, to "rotate the logs"? And what does it mean in terms of true anonymity, if anything? I'm afraid I don't quite understand. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Wow, Jeff. I am an attorney who is familiar with this area of the law. Dr. Alalouf doesnt' have aclaim. What precisely is the false and defammatory comments that have been posted on this thread? I have seen none. Sure, people are emotional, but I don't see anything that could result in liability.

And the threads about his wife have just addressed people's persepective that she should have left him.

Please don't give in to these threats. There is plenty of case law that protects web sites against this type of claim. I am very certain that you could find an attorney in this city to represent you on a pro bono basis.

Dr. Alalouf, you just made things 100% worse. I have no connection to your practice and haven't posted anything on these threads. In fact, my husband is a dentist (and in fact specialized in Pediodontics at one point) and I initially had sympathy for you. You blew it. (And BTW, your "defenders" are just keeping this thread alive.)

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, Jeff. I am an attorney who is familiar with this area of the law. Dr. Alalouf doesnt' have aclaim. What precisely is the false and defammatory comments that have been posted on this thread? I have seen none. Sure, people are emotional, but I don't see anything that could result in liability.

And the threads about his wife have just addressed people's persepective that she should have left him.

Please don't give in to these threats. There is plenty of case law that protects web sites against this type of claim. I am very certain that you could find an attorney in this city to represent you on a pro bono basis.

Dr. Alalouf, you just made things 100% worse. I have no connection to your practice and haven't posted anything on these threads. In fact, my husband is a dentist (and in fact specialized in Pediodontics at one point) and I initially had sympathy for you. You blew it. (And BTW, your "defenders" are just keeping this thread alive.)

Thanks. I have no legal training, although I was accepted by both American University's and Southern Illinois University's law schools. Ultimately, I choose not to go. However, based on extensive reading on this topic, my understanding is exactly as you describe it.

Again, I have no expertise in this area, but it seems to me that Dr. Alalouf has been getting very poor advice. The initial letter sent to patients (presumably based on legal advice) was a disaster which simply enflamed things. Sending me this letter at the same time more reasonable people were drawing my attention to the thread via messages in the Website Feedback forum only hurts his cause.

[jsteele]

In response to a couple of the posts above:

1) I own the DCUM servers so there is no other company involved;

2) "rotating the logs" refers to the practice of moving the current website log file to a separate file and starting a new log file. A limited number of the old files is retained, but eventually the older ones are deleted as additional files are created. Without checking, I am not sure how far back the logs on the system go, but given the amount of traffic on the website (and the subsequent size of the log files), probably not long.

3) Thanks to all of those who have offered support.

[Jazzmom]

This whole story illustrates why I floss 2x a day, brush with Sonicare, and just hope for the best. I've never trusted any dentists. Think about it -- who becomes a dentist?

But seriously, there is no way this missive is going to turn into anything. Alolouf or whatever his name is probably spent a pretty penny just to get a lawyer to write you that letter on her stationery. He almost certainly thought that as soon as you received it, you would fall like a deck of cards. Little did she know about you.

But to take futher steps on a frivoulous claim, to the tune of thousands upon thousands of dollars? When this dentist is already in some financial difficulty? No, I don't think so.