Garrett v. Jaquith [1]

In January 2009, Thomas Garrett, a Virginia chicken farmer, publicist, and self-proclaimed "Hollywood insider," subpoenaed [2] blogger Waldo Jaquith, who publishes cvillenews.com [3], a community news blog about Charlottesville, Virginia.  Garrett's lawyer served the subpoena [2] in connection with his defamation lawsuit [4] against The Hook, a weekly newspaper in Charlottesville that also publishes content on its website [5].  For details on the lawsuit, see our related database entry, Garrett v. The Hook [4].

Jaquith blogged about the Garrett-Hook lawsuit on December 23, 2008.  His post, entitled "The Hook Sued For Defamation [6]," gave background on the lawsuit, quoted Hook editor Hawes Spencer's comments on it, and explained the elements of a defamation claim.  He also made some critical comments about Garrett: 

I can sympathize with The Hook in their continued coverage of him. In writing this blog entry this afternoon, it’s impossible to ignore the really sketchy aspects about this guy. Seriously, look at this magazine that he claims to have been on the cover of [7]. This was obviously patched together in Microsoft Paint. It just screams “bad photoshop job.” (The fact that the magazine doesn’t seem to exist [8] doesn’t help any.) Then there’s his PR firm’s website [9], hosted on Angelfire [10]. Remember them? The free website hosting service from the mid-90s? Used primary to host webpages for middle school girls professing their love for boy bands? That’s where his company’s website is, at the address http://www.angelfire.com/film/tgj/. Though the site claims to be at garretticonspr.com, that domain is unregistered. In short, Garrett looks like a train wreck in slow motion, and I get that The Hook is just watching and waiting for his big finish.

As a result of this post, Garrett's attorney served Jaquith with a subpoena [2] as part of discovery in his lawsuit against The Hook.  Among other things, the subpoena requests the names and/or IP addresses for everyone who posted a comment to Jaquith's December 23 post.  (As of January 29, there were 81 comments to the post.)  It also seeks IP addresses for every viewer of the post and all logs generated in connection with it. Beyond that, it asks Jaquith for every email or written communication he has sent or received relating to the post or Thomas Garrett, as well as any post, comment, or other writing Jacquith has made on other sites.

The return date on the subpoena is February 2, 2009.  Jaquith has indicated that hiring a lawyer to quash the subpoena is beyond his budget, but he plans to fight the subpoena, acting as his own attorney.

Update:

01/31/2009 - Waldo Jaquith filed a motion to quash the subpoena.

02/13/2009 - Garrett filed a motion to compel compliance with the subpoena.

03/05/2009 - Waldo Jacquith filed a memorandum in opposition to the motion to compel.