Cretella v. Kuzminski [1]

On February 7, 2007, Victor E. Cretella, III mailed a letter to Christine Norris on behalf of one of his clients, PublishAmerica LLP, a publishing company, asserting that Norris had published several defamatory comments about his client, and asking her to stop doing so. (See our database entry, PublishAmerica v. Norris [2]). Initially, Norris refused to comply, but on February 15, after she received a second letter, she agreed to do so, posting a forum comment on the Absolute Write Water Cooler [3], an online forum for aspiring authors, stating that Cretella was forcing her to stop complaining about PublishAmerica.

The members of the AWWC community reacted quickly and angrily to Cretella’s activity on behalf of PublishAmerica. According to court filings, on February 16, Kuzminski posted a message stating that “it’s time to report Vic Cretella to the Maryland Bar Association for attempted extortion” and that Cretella’s law firm, Gordon and Simmons, “might not want the black[]eye [that] he’s giving them.” Kuzminski also posted a copy of an e-mail that he allegedly sent to Gordon and Simmons, as well as several members of the Maryland State Bar Association, stating that “Cretella seems to be involved in what I would characterize as extortion” and that Cretella is “actively . . . furthering [PublishAmerica’s] unethical[,] if not illegal[,] methods.” Kuzminski added that he “fully intend[ed] to report [Cretella] to the Maryland State Bar Association.” Kuzminski’s comments were quoted in several subsequent messages on AWWC, most of which applauded his reaction.

On February 13, 2008, Cretella sued [4] Kuzminski for defamation in federal court in Virginia, claiming that Kuzminski's accusations were false and defamatory. Kuzminski filed a motion to dimiss [5], claiming among other things that his statements were merely opinion.

The court dismissed [6] two of the seven defamation counts in the complaint, finding that the statements weren't actionable. But, the court denied the motion as to the other five counts, finding that several of Kuzminki’s other alleged statements – the accusations of extortion and unethical conduct, embarrassment by Cretella’s former law firm, that Cretella took action against another author – all were statements of fact that could be shown to be false. The court reasoned that "many courts have regarded accusations of unlawful activity as statements of fact."

The matter went to the jury. On 2/4/2009, the jury returned a verdict for Cretella in the amount of $236,000. Kuzminski filed a motion to set aside the verdicton 2/10/2009, which Cretella opposed. Both parties have submitted briefs and supplemental briefs on this motion The court has yet to rule.

Update:

9/17/2008 - Kuzminski filed a second motion to dismiss [7]

9/26/2008 - Cretella filed opposition to second motion to dismiss [8]

12/10/2008 - Jury trial scheduled to commence on 2/3/2009

2/4/2009 - Jury finds for Cretella

2/10/2009 - Motion to set aside verdict

2/26/2009 - Opposition to Motion to set aside verdict

4/24/2009 - Transcript of Jury Trial Prepared

5/04/2009 - Supplemental memo in support of motion

5/04/2009 -  Supplemental memo in opposition of motion

7/31/2009 - The court denied a motion to have the jury's verdict set aside as a matter of law, but the court granted defendant's motion for remittitur and reduced the award by $18,000 per count.