Re: Medifast Sues Detractors
Medifast is abusing the legal system to punish critics of Take Shape For Life
Posted by Tracy Coenen on July 20, 2010
Quote:
Medifast has far more resources than any of the defendants, and the company was hoping that by suing us, we’d shut up about the company’s multi-level marketing division Take Shape For Life (TSFL).
Because the lawsuit was filed in California, the defendants were immediately able to file anti-SLAPP motions. (SLAPP = Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) Under the California law which authorizes this, the burden immediately falls on Medifast to prove that it has a probability of winning its case against us.
The whole point of the anti-SLAPP process is to stop big companies from abusing the legal system to get people to shut up. Big companies like Medifast sue people because they know the people can’t afford ongoing legal fees and will likely just stop talking about the company, even if the critics are right. The anti-SLAPP legislation is supposed to force Medifast to prove its case early on, saving the defendants legal fees if Medifast is filing a frivolous suit to harass and bankrupt the defendants.
In this case, Medifast got a gift from the court. They are supposed to prove their case immediately. In this instance, they cannot prove their case, so they resorted to alternate tactics, and the judge is allowing it. Medifast has even been busy lying to the court, but hasn’t been held to account for this yet.
Instead of proceeding with the case as the anti-SLAPP legislation requires, Medifast claimed it needed to do discovery.
In my case, Medifast decided that producing the documents I had in my possession related to Medifast was not enough. They demanded a forensic analysis of my computer to try to recover deleted emails and documents that were deleted long before the lawsuit was filed. Nothing was deleted improperly, and Medifast knows this. Yet, they demanded this expensive and time-consuming process to be undertaken to place a great financial burden on me. They made silly demands that were aimed at increasing the cost and burden of this process, too.
Yet Medifast is still delaying the process and trying to punish the defendants for daring to criticize the company. Medifast was given 90 days to conduct discovery, and now they want 30 more days. This is simply another delay tactic, designed to cost the defendants more time and more money.
What has Medifast done in the last 90 days? They’ve done things like depose the ever-important Sam Antar. Yes, he is such a key to their case, that he’s not listed as a defendant. He’s merely a blogger who is friends with some of the defendants. He’s written about Medifast on his blog. And so Medifast has spent hours and hours harassing him.
Wait! What about the defendants? Shouldn’t Medifast be worried about deposing them? Wasn’t that the whole point of this discovery process? I have heard not one peep about deposing me. Yep. Deposing Sam Antar is far more important. So important that now Medifast wants to extend discovery so that they can do depositions of the actual defendants.
It’s easy to see what Medifast is doing. They’re delaying arguing the real issues because they will lose on the facts. And as a result, they’re also delaying having to provide any discovery themselves. They know what happens if they’re forced to turn over data and documents: it will be proven that the defendants told the truth. And we know that the longer Medifast goes without having to produce information themselves, the greater the chance that they are destroying and altering documentation.
The games need to stop. This litigation needs to proceed under the anti-SLAPP legislation in California. Enough games. Enough burden on the defendants. Someone (the judge, maybe?) needs to make Medifast prove its case the way the law intended them to prove it.
Medifast is abusing the legal system to punish critics of Take Shape For Life : Sequence Inc. Fraud Files Blog
Re: Medifast Sues Detractors
UPDATE:
Medifasts' abuse of the judicial process eventually came to naught as the anti SLAPP legislation worked perfectly:
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...APPgranted.jpg
Tracey Coenen, Bill Lobdell, Barry Minkow, ibzreporting.com, and the Fraud Discovery Institute were all dismissed from the case.
The full judgement in .pdf format can be downloaded HERE
Re: Medifast Sues Detractors
At the risk of defiling off topic rules, this is a judicial opinion that the bogmeister should have read and interpreted for him. ( After witnessing his meltdowns, I have serious doubts that he can read and comprehend legal concepts on his own without training wheels attached.)
Re: Medifast Sues Detractors
Quote:
Originally Posted by
laidback
At the risk of defiling off topic rules, this is a judicial opinion that the bogmeister should have read and interpreted for him. ( After witnessing his meltdowns, I have serious doubts that he can read and comprehend legal concepts on his own without training wheels attached.)
The Bogmeister still thinks anti SLAPP laws were designed to stop people hitting each other across the face.
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Medifast Sues Detractors
http://www.realscam.com/f11/rod-cook...-medifast-630/
We had quite a lively discussion about just that in another thread.
Here is the current docket. Looks like Medifast is being ordered to pay those tens of thousands in attorney fees! A lesson Boggy might want to take to heart!
3:10-cv-00382-JLS-BGS Medifast, Inc. et al v. Minkow et al
Janis L. Sammartino, presiding
Bernard G. Skomal, referral
Date filed: 02/17/2010
Date of last filing: 12/09/2011
Attachment 472
Soapboxmom
