Comment by Ardit20 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ardit20 | Hacker News Reader

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"I also have a rule that anybody that does not want to be reasonable has to sue me"

That might work with the average Joe or the guy in his basement, but a public figure might, knowing that he vastly out powers you in terms of law expertise, follow through. So too a company. That is, if they actually have any basis for it. You can not be sued for opinions, but you need to make it clear that they are opinions, and you can not be sued for saying the truth. If you blatantly defame someone however, again the average Joe might not want to go through the hassle as he would have to pay lawyers, but some other person would have no reason to hesitate. So if you defame someone, just offer them to amend it, if however they are making threats without any base at all, then yeah sure stick with your rule.

> That is, if they actually have any basis for it.

That's the key though.

And in the very large majority of the cases it seems that threatening to sue are a modern day equivalent of baring your teeth. And just like in the animal kingdom, most of the time, showing that you have teeth too, and presumably bigger ones will cause the other party to back down.

Of course you have to weigh your position carefully, but even corporations have backed down when faced with the prospect of someone that would not be scared by this. And in those cases where I threatened to sue and the other party did not back down I followed through each and every time, haven't lost a single case to date.

It all depends on what is at stake and how much of it is simply kneejerk responses. A very large portion of all this is just bluster and threat display, most of the times there are reasonable people underneath the angry facade, and if they realize that their facade has been punctured quite often the reasonable person emerges.

Those times where I sued the business interests warranted the investment in legal fees and the damages recovered in turn covered those fees. If that would not have been the case I would have let it slide, otherwise you're just throwing good money after bad.

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