When Ken at Popehat broke the news of yet another lawyer sending yet another cease and desist letter, there wasn’t much reason to take notice. First, Ken was on it, and he likes his role as defender against censorious asshats. Second, it happens all the time, and is usually dealt with swiftly and harshly by the ordinary dynamics of the Streisand Effect. And third, it involved FunnyJunk and the Oatmeal, which is largely like watching two 12-year-olds rolling in the mud.
But Matthew Inman, who does the Oatmeal, put the lawyer Charles Carreon’s letter demanding $20k on the web, with his own special touches, in a masterful response, one aspect of which was that rather than succumb to Carreon’s demand, he would raise some money for charity.
BearLove Good. Cancer Bad.
I’m trying to raise $20k to donate half to the National Wildlife Federation (for the bears), and half to the American Cancer Society (because cancer is shitty).At the moment, he’s collected more than $179k for charity. Not bad for a bunch of 12-year-olds, and certainly one of the more interesting ways to respond to a lawyer letter. And with my buddy Venkat Balasubramani handling the more lawyerly response, one would have expected that this would fade into internet oblivion as another monumentally foolish move by a lawyer. But no.
Charles Carreon should have learned the hard way what happens when a bad legal strategy meets a whole lot of 12-year-olds with computers and the sort of attitude reflected by postings at his client’s website. Instead, he did the unthinkable. Via Kevin Underwood at Lowering the Bar :
The complaint is apparently not available yet on PACER, but my Courthouse News Service report said it was filed, and the court’s feed of newly filed cases confirms that.
A really bad ideaAccording to the summary provided by CNS, and again I stress I haven’t seen the actual complaint yet, Carreon has sued for “trademark infringement and incitement to cyber-vandalism,” and he has not only sued Inman but also the website through which he has been raising money for charity (IndieGogo.com) and the charities to which Inman has pledged the money. Yes, he is apparently also suing the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. The summary says Inman’s request for donations “purports to raise money” for these organizations, “but was really designed to revile plaintiff and his client, FunnyJunk.com .…” (As you can divine from that, Carreon is representing himself here.) Looking forward to seeing the complaint for many reasons, but especially to find out how the charities are supposedly to blame for any of this.
Three things to note: First, Carreon started suit in his own name, not that of his client, which suggest that this is for the wrong done him by the mean children of the internet. Second, he’s sued not only Inman, apparently for “incitement to cyber-vandalism,” but the Indiegogo, which handles charitable collections, as well as the two charities to whom Inman’s collection goes.
This is nuts. For a fellow who foolishly stepped in shit, he’s doubled quadrupled down. My guess is that he’s included the charities as stakeholders or beneficiaries of Inman’s actions, and wants the money collected to go to him rather than to fighting cancer or saving bears. He wants money collected to fight cancer to go to him instead. It’s unthinkable and anyone could do such a thing.
Protip: Unless your handicapped child was deliberately run down by a drunk employee of the American Cancer Society on the way back from a fundraiser with a bag of drug money in the car, who then fled the scene and took refuge in a homeless shelter where he molested young boys, you don’t sue the American Cancer Society.
This isn’t the first time a lawyer has done something monumentally stupid and absolutely certain to invoke the wrath of a million individuals on the internet for damn good reason, It’s not the first time someone conclusively proved their cluelessness by thinking they could take on the internet by calling it names for being mean to him. And it likely won’t be the last, as lawyers’ arrogance has a way of metastasizing whenever their feelings are hurt by their own incredibly bad judgment.
Yet one would suspect that a lawyer who holds himself out as internet savvy would have a clue that his conduct stands an awfully good chance of bringing a avalanche of bad feelings and internet reaction upon his head. How Charles Carreon failed to consider this when he decided that filing suit would show his enemies who was boss cannot be explained.
Ironically, Carreon need only have taken a few minutes to stroll around his client’s website to come to a small appreciation of what was likely to happen to him. FunnyJunk is a harsh, cruel place, where nasty children using foul language with odd ideas and evil minds reign supreme. Did he think the fans of the Oatmeal were going to be kinder?
As much as there might have been some issues worth discussing between rational lawyers in the beginning, although it hardly seems that Carreon’s decision to send a nastygram to Inman reflected sound strategy or legal acumen, he would only suffer the indignity of upsetting a huge group of young people who enjoyed humor on the internet. He would survive it, if handled thoughtfully.
By suing the American Cancer Society, the National Wildlife Foundation and, given the outcome of his charitable efforts, Matthew Inman, Charles Carreon has elevated himself in the rarified Pantheon of lawyers whose stupid conduct on the web will never be forgotten. He will forever be remembered as the lawyer who cried “no cure for cancer!!!”
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I chortled when I saw the Oatmeal’s response to the suit. It’s only going to get better (worse?) from here.
Given that Carreon both started and exacerbated his problems, I can’t feel sorry for his shockingly misguided choices. While it seems very likely that the lulz will get better, it also feeds the internet’s cynicism towards lawyers and the legal system. While Carreon is the outlier, he will nonetheless be perceived to be the poster boy, and it will prove (again) how lawyers suck.
With the ‘Carreon’ (rhymes with ‘carrion’) now become a new standard of blow-back? Something like “Streisand Effect” x 10^6?
It’s different. Magnitude aside, you never forget your first.
From the Washington Post:
“Carreon tells Comic Riffs one of his goals is to become the go-to attorney for people who feel they have been cyber-vandalized or similarly wronged on the Internet.”
Cool. An attorney devoted to combating internet butthurt.
The parallels between Carreon and another attorney whose heart aches and hands wring over internet mobbing is becoming undeniable.
The charities appear to have been made parties (a) so that they can enforce the trust for their benefit that Carreon wants imposed on all funds raised by the campaign (this is predicated on Carreon’s belief that
only $20,000 is to be split between the charities with Inman retaining the rest, less Indiegogo’s commission (complaint, paras 36-37)), and (b) because Carreon is seeking injunctive relief requiring the charities “to affirmatively require written contracts with all commercial fundraisers in the State of California and to police the activities of fundraisers in order to prevent future abuses, false advertising, and unfair practices” (prayer for relief A(4)).
Of course, to give himself standing to seek this relief, he had himself to donate to the campaign (para 38).
The other inexplicable aspect of this suit is that FunnyJunk is not a party.
I particularly like the part of the complaint where he alleged that his donation was based on his desire to be charitable toward the two beneficiaries. Credible and charitable. What a guy.
Had Carreon simply written Inman a letter stating, “You out-played, out-witted, out-lasted me, congrats” and attached a check for $17.76 for the fund, he’d have gotten far more than $17.76 worth of good will for future endeavors, professional or otherwise. Alas….
What is truly disappointing about both Carreon and that other attorney who sued the internet is that they both had plenty of chances, after they found themselves clearly on the wrong side of the legal argument, to back out. And they could have done so with minimal monetary expense and, likely, with much less embarrassment than they have and will receive.
When I was still practicing law in the Great White North, I always encouraged clients when responding to ridiculous demand letters to try and provide the misguided lawyer on the other side a reasonable opportunity to both reflect on his actions and to abandon the matter while saving face. Whether or not the opposing party was the one pressuring the lawyer to pursue frivolous complaints, that is not an excuse to continue pursuing a worthless cause. I know that this is the bread and butter of some lawyers; however, this bully attitude is often a reflection of inexperience, incompetence or the increasingly-common belief that getting embarrassed in court is somehow better for both the lawyer and the client’s interests than admitting you made a mistake. If seeking personal vindication at the client’s expense doesn’t scream unethical conduct, then the profession is entering a black hole.