Denner v. Gillenwater [1]

Derrick Gillenwater sued lawyers Jeffrey Denner and Kevin Barron for malpractice in Massachusetts state court.  During the litigation, Gillenwater allegedly sent a threatening email to Denner and Barron, stating that he would "send his blog posting out to the media" and that he would raise his damages demand by $1 million if he had to "send a 93A letter."  (Exactly what all this means, we do not know.)  In response, Denner and Barron filed an emergency motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for a preliminary injunction.

On October 10, 2008, Associate Justice Lauriat of the Massachusetts Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order against Gillenwater, prohibiting him from using the words "Jeffrey" and/or "Denner" and/or "Jeffrey Denner" in any blog post prior to an October 14 hearing on the defendants' motion.  The court also restrained Gillenwater from filing with the court or otherwise publishing a document captioned "Motion of Plaintiff Gillenwater for Summary Judgment" and from contacting either defendant.  

On October 21, 2008, Justice Spurlock of the Massachusetts Superior Court ruled [2] that Gillenwater had violated the restraining order by continuing to publish his blog (located at http://jeffreydenner.blogspot.com [3]).  Gillenwater apparently left the substance of his previous postings intact and simply replaced "Jeffrey Denner" with "Geoffrey Dinnir" in the text.  The court directed Gillenwater to comply with the October 10 order and further prohibited him from "using in his depiction in his blogspot [sic] that could be reasonably interpreted as referring to Jeffrey Denner or Kevin Barron."  The court also enjoined Gillenwater from filing his motion for summary judgment "or any other pleading unless he receives prior permission from this court."  Mr. Gillenwater's blog is no longer online [4].

On December 1, the blog-hosting service Blogger took down another blog called "Jeffrey Denner's ineffective assistance of counsel [5]" (located at http://dennerlaw.blogspot.com/ [5]), after receiving a copy of the court order from Denner.  Blogger restored this blog after its pseudonymous operator "Boston Bob" informed the company that he is not Derrik Gillenwater.  See our database entry, Denner v. Boston Bob [6].