Former Plaintiffs Now Owe Bloggers Legal Fees for “Suing First and Thinking Later”
The story of the defamation lawsuit filed by journalists Lane Bajardi and his wife Kim Cardinal Bajardi against local bloggers Roman Brice and Nancy Pincus has taken yet another turn, as the former plaintiffs are now required to pay $276,000 in legal fees for the defendants.
As reported by hMAG.com in February, the Bajardis $2 million defamation lawsuit was dismissed for lack of credible evidence.
In his subsequent ruling handed down on July 8, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Arre states that the, “The Court finds Plaintiffs must reimburse Defendants for the litigation costs of suing first and thinking later.” Arre adds that the, “Plaintiffs were limited public figures who manipulated their attorney to perpetuate … a SLAPP-suit disguised as a defamation case involving weighty issues of constitutionally protected First Amendment political free speech.”
Arre also states that, “At no time did there exist any evidence of actual damages suffered on the part of Plaintiffs [sic], or actual malice on the part of the Defendants.”
As a result, the plaintiffs will now be forced to pay the legal fees for the defendants, in what has been a long and tense experience for all involved.
“For someone making their living on the First Amendment, it was astounding that Mr. Bajardi would take a dozen Hoboken residents to court for alleging harm — for their political speech,” Brice said after the decision.
Meanwhile, emails from the Bajardis have now become public record, providing rather eye-opening insight into local political tactics.
And yet predictably, the couple plans to appeal.
“This case has always been about hatred and lies. My family has been under assault now for six years by members of one of the most powerful political machines in the country,” said Kim Cardinal Bajardi. “In Hoboken, Hudson County, if a person chooses to exercise his or her constitutional rights and petition their government, they surrender their civil rights and become targets for life.”
Looks like the biggest winner in this lawsuit will be the lawyers…
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Good article. I will offer another view on your conclusion, “Looks like the biggest winner in this lawsuit will be the lawyers…”
If the trial court’s rulings hold up on appeal, we are looking at a changed landscape in New Jersey for internet speech and the filing of SLAPP suits. In fact, if the fee award holds up in court, this will set a precedent for recovery of legal fees for SLAPP victims, when the SLAPP is litigated beyond summary judgment, and attorneys are held responsible (sanctioned). This is a groundbreaking ruling, and promises to discourage future apiring SLAPPers, their ambulance chasers, and strengthen protections for political speech online in New Jersey.
Finally, our legal team is the ‘A Team,’ and at the end of the day, whatever they recover will not be enough to fully compensate their time and effort to fight this SLAPP suit- 68 motions, through several states- fought in a vicious, scorched earth fashion.
While the Bajardi suit was perhaps the biggest screw up in legal history, the real spot light should be shone on the crazy people at the forefront of the Hoboken blog scene.
It is filled with pathetic children:
GA’s Nancy Pincus and MSV’s Roman Brice:
Rule #1 is you don’t give your self a nick name. You just don’t. Pincus and Brice, while fundamentally right to point out Beth Mason’s shenanigans, clearly have a serious stalker slant to their game. I’ve seen GA and MSV use commentators metadata (IP Address) and threaten to call their firms IT department for comments that do not agree with.
H411’s Perry Klaussen is a crazy bitter man with no friends (other than his fake commentators), hell bent on trivial nonsense that no one cares about yet he has a whole web site focused on it.
These are all sick people that needs to be reigned in.
Hoboken’s Politicians should publicly condemn the tone of the Hoboken bloggers. The above 3 facilitators and their two dozen frequent followers/commentators, are solely responsible for the ridiculousness of the Hoboken political scene. These 3 are pigs that love to play in the mud. It’s not the Hoboken I know and used to love.
Do any of these people actualyl work for a living? Is there a related web story that Pincus doesn’t comment on? I’d love to see these crazy people run for elected office – all they do is complain all day long on their blogs and comment sections – just like a teenager would. do something productive for once.
Where can we go to see all the emails? Can we have them published online in their entirety? I bet there is a lot of venom in them and I would not be surprised if they did not reveal how Bijardi and Cardinale harassed others in their employment of Beth Mason. At some level I feel sorry for them. New parents down a job during a terrible time. They compromised their integrity out of desperation. Pathetic.
As one of a dozen defendants who lived this three year SLAPP-suit supported by Councilwoman Beth Mason; it’s appropriate to weigh in on this solid article.
The court did some very heavy lifting examining evidence across an insane amount of SLAPP-suit motions, well over five dozen across five states. Yes, it was insane and depraved and very costly.
The biggest winners are actually NJ residents who can speak a bit more freely on issues of public concern without fear of being SLAPPed with frivolous litigation to shut them up. That’s no small matter and worth closer examination.
This case was indeed motivated by hatred and lies – the plaintiffs: Lane Bajardi and Kimberly Cardinal Bajardi both “friends” of Councilwoman Beth Mason and Richard Mason of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz a big Manhattan law firm.
In discovery, defendants obtained tens of thousands of emails from Lane and Kimberly Bajardi, almost all of it was of a highly political nature. Over 7,000 emails (seven-thousand) were between Lane Bajardi and Kim Bajardi and Beth and Richard Mason.
Some of the gems were published on MSV. You can’t believe what’s in them but you have to see it for yourself. Utter depravity on trying to destory Hoboken (and the mayor), the local hospital and of course launch a SLAPP-suit.
There was the Court discovered stolen emails from the mayor’s office on Lane Bajardi’s computer obtained from Hobooken411’s Perry Klaussen. All the political garbage strewn on Hoboken411 was being ghostwritten by Lane Bajardi from 2007-2011 on that rigidly censored pro-Beth Mason website.
It was only one of many, many lies uncovered through this SLAPP-suit.
See the emails for yourself:
http://www.hobokenhorse.com/p/emails-contained-here-are-part-of.html
Don’t know why you’ve decided to come here and make up easily disproven lies.
My First Amendment rights earned after three years in court do not need reigning in by you or any other voice bellowing for fascist totalitarianism.
There’s been on average the past year, a single story on MSV running four days a week and in over five years, none of it has or ever had anything to do with making any threat to anyone’s job or work.
It’s been uncovered however in the court ordered emails from the case that was was the case being by Beth Mason’s “friends” to use in the SLAPP-suit right handed right over by Hoboken411. (MSV uses a third party software system so nothing is logged with the website).
MSV has broken a lot of very big stories in Hoboken, many on corruption and remain exclusive.
Obviously, you either know some of the truth and wish to ignore it or you are covering it up.
The Court found the almost three years of litigation against a dozen or so Hoboken residents was a SLAPP-suit. This was deisgned to be malicious and it was underwritten with that intent.
Read the legal decision and the emails. It’s all there. Oh and you’re no reformer of any kind. That utter tripe about “stalking” is another lie tried by Councilwoman Beth Mason.
MSV has another trial to reveal the truth on that too. You are a nastly liar. And you have no balls writing your slanderous lies. None.
Regards,
Roman Walter Brice
Editor
The Hudson Mile Square View
Hoboken’s biggest website covering government, politics and corruption
http://hobokenhorse.com
So, “Hoboken Blog Reformer,” you’re telling us that is your legal name and not your ‘nick name’?
Your remarks are so idiotic they do not deserve a response. However, since you ring up ‘nick names,’ FYI, I was anonymous until Beth Mason’s employee James Barracato outed me on Hudson Shark”- which was his ‘nick name.’
You appear to has risen from the same cesspool as the SLAPPers, Lane Bajardi and Kim Cardinal Bajardi, with the same talking points, making the same calls for “condemnation” which by the way, no one cares about. Whomever doesn’t ‘like’ GA and/or MSV won’t read them, it is that simple. They do not care about unpersuasive moronic rantings from the ‘nickname’ Hoboken Blog Reformer.
Check it out folks, the blog that makes the Dark Side nuts.
http://grafixavenger.blogspot.com/
Roman and Nancy are the pro Zimmer, 411 is the anti Zimmer. When either of their chosen horses makes an error they never ever mention it, they only write about the rights and never the wrongs. I believe in the world of writing this is called yellow journalism. I have met all 3 in person over the last few years. All are very lonely inside and empty. The only thing they care about is their respective blogs and how they are always right, they are in their eyes never wrong and if you challenge them, as a person mentioned above, they look you up by your IP address and expose or threaten to expose you. They are criminals in their own regards who get away with crimes because laws for these crimes are rarely pursued.
Reality is these people are LOSERS. None of them have a real job, they all work from home and call themselves freelancers. If you take away the 25 people give or take a few who play in this playground of internet blogging / commentating, you have nothing. Apart from these approximately 25 individuals there are 1000’s that see these people as LOSERS. In the end the joke is on them, yet they fail to realize it. And that Roman guy has been attacked numerous times all over town for screwing with others. He has made 2 complaints to the police for assault however the real number is above 10. One day someone is not going to take his shit anymore and they’ll mess him up really good and send him a message.
It’s quite easy to refute your innumerable fabrications. First, MSV started in 2009 after Peter Cammrano’s arrest and subsequent refusal to resign. It’s easily verfiable in the archives available on the homepage. MSV is pro-Reform and the mayor has delivered on bringing integrity to the office. If she falls down the stairs on her head and starts acting demented like Beth Mason, we’ll adjust accordingly.
MSV in close to six years has over six million views with another ten million on its related google plus, so that’s 16 million hits and it didn’t come from getting things wrong. Those folks are what we call readers; interested in the community not losers (specially bitters one like yourself).
MSV has made published the most minor of corrections if a hat is called the wrong color. Easily verified and your baseless accusations are frankly hysterical. You mad bro?
You need to rethink your false criminal allegations made here. You falsely accuse others of things Hoboken411 has done. Hoboken411 shared private personal information with Beth Mason political operatives and some of these same Hoboken residents were frivolously dragged to court in what the Court itself deemed a SLAPP-suit. This is factual, verifiable information revealed in court documents and emails obtained in discovery.
Consider this an official request to retract your criminal allegations.
To dispel a few of your other colorful lies, I’ve not filed multiple complaints about assaults and certainly not 10. My most recent communication on criminal activity was turning over evidence to law enforcement agencies of a threat made by email which stated “Don’t mess with politicians. Things won’t end well.”
MSV did not stop its reporting. If you or anyone else think they can kick my ass and shut me up, go ahead and try. Thanks and have a nice day.
As a side note, here’s more evidence revealed at trial with Hoboken411 sharing stolen data/email(s) out of the mayor’s office. The judge noted the findings in February when the case was thrown out of court mid-trial:
http://www.hobokenhorse.com/2015/02/lane-bajardi-and-hoboken411-blog-owner_17.html
Beth Mason political operatives teaming up with Hoboken411’s Perry Klaussen surrendering their private user information:
http://www.hobokenhorse.com/2015/04/lane-bajardi-teams-up-with-hoboken411s.html
MSV homepage http://hobokenhorse.com – See “The Bench SLAPPED Series” to read the original emails yourself.