Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Brooklyn Man Sues Match.com for Humiliation and Disappointment

A Brooklyn man filed suit yesterday against Match.com for humiliation and disappointment. That humiliation, of course, will be nothing compared to being known as the guy that sued Match.com for humiliation and disappointment. His name is Sean McGinn.

It seems that the women McGinn was sending missives to were no longer on Match.com, but the service kept their names and profiles up anyway. Having sent hundreds of letters, this tended to waste a lot of time. He was steamed. He started a class action based on deceptive practices.

But it seems to me that if he has a legitimate beef about his time being wasted, then that is what he should have sued for. Overreaching into the realm of a personal, psychological injury is just the kind of thing that will get you skewered up, down and sideways. It's a distraction from the real issue, and not a healthy distraction.

It's not unusual to overreach, of course. Judge Robert Bork famously did that when his lawyer sued -- when he slipped ascending the dais at the Yale Club for a speech and hurt himself -- for "in excess" of a million dollars, punitive damages, legal fees and interest from the time of the accident. Even if the hematoma on his leg that he claimed he needed surgery for was significant, New York law doesn't even provide for legal fees and interest from the time of the accident in such an instance, and punitive damages were an idiotic claim. The reputation of this tort "reformer" was badly tarnished by his hypocrisy in overreaching.

The lesson? Don't overreach in demands. Because an legitimate complaint will get overshadowed by the illegitimate ones.

Also:

• Dot-Com has 'Date' in Court (NY Post)
• Lawsuit claims that dating website Match.com sticks it to hopeful users (NY Daily News)
  

Labels: Interesting Cases in the News

posted by Eric Turkewitz
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