The Libel Suit? It is On
By Jane • Feb 27th, 2008 • Category: Misc, Publishing News • •Individuals who are, or once were, associated with PublishAmerica are suing the Preditor & Editors site for libel. Barbara Bauer is an agent who claims that P&E libeled her by calling her a scammer. Victor E. Cretella, an attorney with PublishAmerica and a member of the Maryland Bar, is suing P&E for harming his reputation.
Barbara Bauer is on SFWA’s twenty worst agents list. NielsonHayden also noted that Barbara Bauer is a “well known scam agent” and so did Miss Snark. As everyone and their cousin on these sites note, calling someone a scam agent is defensible if it is the truth. (I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say that it is not libel if it is the truth. Truth is just an absolute defense to libel).
On the P&E website, it claims that Victor E Cretella infringed on a contract. I am not sure how you can infringe on a contract. You can breach a contract. You can tortiously interfere with a contract but infringe? In any event, this is a bit more interesting. Apparently some had made complaints to the Maryland Bar Association regarding Cretella’s activities as PublishAmerica’s attorney. Any complaint made to an ethics board is investigated in my state. Is Cretella an unethical lawyer? Essentially, that is what P&E is going to have to prove.
7/14/07: PublishAmerica’s lawyer Victor Cretella infringing contract? This is what we’ve had reported to P&E. According to our source, Vic has infringed upon or is breaching the terms of a contract in regards to the Arbitration clause.
So, is this how PA operates? They don’t honor their contracts or show any good faith even when it comes to negotiations and arbitration?
By the way, anyone who has had dealings with an attorney in Maryland who knows they are in violation of the law or their ethics code can file a complaint against the attorney using the information at http://www.courts.state.md.us/attygrievance/complaint.html. This site lists some of the sanctions applied to various attorneys. According to our sources, sounds like it’s time to report Vic for his behavior.
Thanks to Dooley for the tip.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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I’m perplexed, perhaps because I just haven’t read enough of the background information. How is filing a complaint with the AGC libelous? I don’t believe that complaints to the AGC are published (by the AGC). If the attorney is reprimanded, that info is published, but only after the investigation is complete. Unless the libel allegation is about P&E’s public statements, rather than the mention of the AGC?
I think that it is the assertion that his activities are somehow unlawful have harmed his business reputation. I haven’t seen the complaint so I am just guessing here.
[...] courts, according to the news via Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels. The unfairness here is, as Dear Author points out, there are at least three other well-known websites that said the same thing about Barbara Bauer, [...]
There are other sites that said the same about Barbara Bauer, and a great many other sites that have reproduced the Worst Agent List. I’m convinced all this legal activity is happening because the Worst Agent List has been so effective. A lot of people out there have a long-term habit of getting paid for doing nothing.
In some cases, I think they’re also upset because they aren’t accustomed to thinking of themselves as dishonest. I don’t have a lot of sympathy. If you’ve been selling your services as an agent for a year or two, but not selling any books for your clients, you might be forgiven for telling yourself that your agency is just being slow to get started. When it’s been a decade or more, you don’t have much excuse.
An attorney thinks that they can get damages because they were reported for an ethics violation– I assume that is why he was reported to the MD state bar. Oh, puhleeze. When pigs get their own air traffic controllers.
I thought in cases of libel, the person has to prove it was done with malicious intent? And it has to be untrue?
Look out, my one course in Business Law is rearing its ugly head.
I’m amazed that Bauer actually went so far as to sue!
She’s been throwing threats around for years, but no one ever thought ten wild horses could drag her inside a courtroom and potential Full Discovery.
If not for the fact that this could be very expensive for Dave no matter what, I’d be hugely entertained by Bauer having to prove she’s not a scammer.
One of my friends is listed in the suit from Bauer. Also listed on her suit are Patrick Nielsen Hayden and his ( senior editors at Tor ), SFWA, and… Wikipedia.
I’ve been following the Cretella suit fairly carefully. (It is separate from the Bauer suit.) David Kuzminski, editor of “Preditors and Editors,” is the defendant, but most of the allegedly defamatory statements were not made on “Preditors and Editors.” As far as the ethics complaint against Cretella is concerned, Kuzminski allegedly sent out a mass email to members of the Maryland State Bar Association’s ethics committee. One issue: apparently that is not the proper procedure for filing an ethics complaint. Cretella alleges that certain statements in the mass email were defamatory per se.
In response to Laura Elliott’s question, Cretella has indeed alleged “actual malice.” Whether he will be able to back that up is, of course, another matter.
Jane notes that “infringing on a contract” is a very odd phrase. I feel fairly sure that this is just a slip for “breaching a contract.”
In the latest development in this lawsuit, the judge has dismissed two of the counts in Cretella’s complaint, but five counts remain. Kuzminski is still representing himself. I have to say that it looks to me as though he is seriously out of his depth, legally speaking. For one thing, he appears not to have participated in a discovery conference as required by rule 26(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. I can understand why he wouldn’t want to sit down with Cretella. But from my non-lawyer’s perspective, rule 26(f) looks pretty unyielding.
Since “Preditors and Editors” still has a donation button for a legal defense fund, I presume that Kuzminski is actively looking for a lawyer. I think he would greatly benefit from finding one, and soon.