Veranda Partners v. Giles (Letter) [1]

Larry Giles set up a website called "The Veranda Park News," which covered events in his residential community, aestethic issues in the neighborhood, and commentary. The site contained statements critical of Veranda Partners, LLC, the housing developer of Giles's community.

Through its lawyer, Veranda Partners ("VP") sent Giles a cease-and-desist letter on February 23, 2007, demanding that he take down the site. The letter asserted that the website constituted "a campaign designed to disparage and injure VP's reputation and goodwill and is intended to interfere with VP's contractual relationships with its customers and potential customers." It further indicated that Veranda Partners "intends to file a lawsuit against you for substantial monetary damages and injunctive relief to shutdown your Website" and that "[t]his letter is intended to serve as your sole opportunity to avoid ltigation." It gave Giles until 11:59pm the following day to shutdown his entire website in order to avoid litigation.

Giles apparently complied with this demand, but Veranda Partners sued him anyway, claiming that the statements on his site defamed them. Please see our database entry [2] on the lawsuit for more information.