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Vic Mignogna Lawsuit |OT| Hold My Beard (Update: Appeal lost, Mignogna must pay attorney fees to defendants)

Summary of the case so far
    • Protome

    Protome

    Member
    Oct 27, 2017
    15,677
    Zelas said:
    What happened with the court case?

    Why does a 162 page catch all thread only have 2 threadmarks?
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    I think your post got lost in the shuffle as concern trolls started but to answer your questions:

    1) The court case is ongoing. Here is a REALLY quick summarised version of events. Hopefully someone can fill this out a bit more and we can get that Threadmarked or something. For reference, I'm not a lawyer so i'll probably mess some of the law-ish bits up and I highly recommend trying to sift through the "Threadnought" on Twitter for better info from actual lawyers.

    • Vic sued Funimation, Monica Riel, Ron Toye and Jaimie Marchi for defamation and tortious inteference with contracts. There are also other charges of conspiracy, which are connected to the previous two as you need to prove they did the thing before you can prove they worked together to do the thing.
    • Vic was originally seeking at least $1 Million in damages, with no maximum. That was updated to between $1-5 million when Vic's lawyer realised it's harder to argue that specific damages were made that Vic needs to be compensated for if you don't give a hard number.
    • Vic's lawyer, Ty Beard, has never actually litigated a Defamation case (and it sounds like has possibly never litigated a case?) as he is a real estate lawyer primarily.
    • This lawyer was hired at recommendation of a youtuber who started a GoFundMe campaign to fund the campaign also.
    • Depositions were done of the defendants and Vic. Nothing much of note came from the defendants ones other than that Vic's lawyer didn't know what he was doing and accidentally ended Toye's deposition hours early, thinking Toye had refused to authenticate evidence when in fact he had already authenticated it.
    • Vic's deposition has been largely considered "case destroying." Not only did he admit to multiple of the claims that the lawsuit claims were defamatory statements, he also admitted to never asking the youtuber to create the GFM campaign, endorsing it or indeed even knowing how much he was suing for or what his lawyer was being paid.
    • Worth also noting at this point, Defamation works differently in the US depending on the plaintiff's standing. The over-simplification is, if you're a private figure you can sue for a lot more broad things than a public figure can by simply proving those things hurt him. Vic is arguing that the defendant's actions and claims made him lose money from being able to go to conventions and sell chances to meet him, signed merch, etc etc which puts him squarely into the "Public Figure" standing instead, in which case he needs to prove not only that damage was caused by the claims but also that the defendants knew they were false when they made them. This distinction is really hard to prove and is why public figures rarely win defamation cases in the US (and why Vic's original lawyers told him he didn't have a case...) The defence's response to this has basically been "they weren't lies because we believed the things we said happened and we believe they happened because they happened" followed by statements under oath from many of Vic's victims.
    • Another point worth noting (thank you L Thammy for reminding me on this one) is that the Defense are also arguing that Vic is what is known as "Libel-Proof" basically, that his reputation was already so bad before the statements he is suing over were made that the statements could not possibly have harmed him in any meaningful way. This is something Vic himself accidentally admitted in his Deposition and is also supported by things like Vic hosting a "Rumours" panel about these claims in 2011, more than 8 years before the defendants made their claims.
    • The defendants each filed TCPA motions. This is the Texas version of the SLAPP act, which is basically designed to shut down frivolous lawsuits primarily being used to try cause monetary damages to defendants without actually intending to win a case. Eg: A rich person suing a poor person because they know hiring a lawyer to defend it will destroy their life financially.
    • Worth noting, Riel and Toye's lawyer is incredibly highly regarded in defending TCPA cases, runs a blog educating people about TCPA and is all around basically overqualified for this case.
    • The way the TCPA works means that after it is filed the judge must hear the case for it within a certain number of days. Vic's lawyer got an extension to this in exchange for the Defence getting guarantees that he couldn't drop mystery evidence on the court date as he had previously claimed he was going to do. The Judge agreed to it and set a 7 day deadline on filings before the court case (At the time of writing THIS deadline is today! [Update: he missed it])
    • The TCPA motions will have their day in court a week today, with the judge giving their verdict some point before an October date (I forget what the date is, but it's roughly about a month later.)
    • If they pass then the case is dropped, Vic has to pay each of the defendants legal fees and will also most likely be hit with a sizeable fine as punishment. Vic can then appeal them (and probably will) so it'll still drag on at least another couple of months. If they lose on appeal Vic will need to pay the defence fees for the appeal process also.
    • If they don't pass then the judge will decide whether the case is worth putting in front of a jury or could dismiss it outright himself (I think, again, not a lawyer.)
    • Lawyers on twitter became pretty enamored with the case because one of the initial filings by Vic's lawyer stated (not verbatim, I don't have it in front of me but it's easy to find) that calling Vic "A piece of shit" was defamatory because Vic was "not literally made of fecal matter" an argument so absurdly stupid it has been quoted and laughed at by lawyers literally across the globe at this point. They all seem pretty confident the TCPAs will succeed and many have posted break downs as to why and detailing both the issues with Vic's case and the strength of the defence's arguments.
    • LATEST UPDATE: At the time of writing, Vic's lawyer has failed to file his responses to the TCPA motions, claiming technical issues. This probably won't result in anything meaningful as the Judge will give him some leeway on it due to him being new to this and the Judge wanting to make appealing his result harder for the plaintiff. Expect the defendant's lawyers to make fun of him a bunch though.

    2) I have no idea why there are so few threadmarks in this thread. I originally said in this post that someone else should make a threadmark summary post but i'll PM the OP and ask if they can threadmark this one. However I'm not going to be able to update this regularly or anything and it's still no doubt full of errors and missing things so if people @ me i'll try to add corrections when I have time.

    Here's the "Quick Navigation" thread of Greg Doucette's "Threadnought" about the case. It's bloated with him retweeting and mocking trolls so it's pretty hard to follow unfortunately but it's by far the most in depth break down of why the case is most likely a massive mistake on Vic's part, regardless of whether he actually did the things the defendants claimed he did or not.


    And for funsies here's the current list of Vic's victims who has sworn statements under oath about what he has done.


    Hope this helps! I haven't even mentioned any of Beard's misguided "Motion to Strike" stuff which the defence responded to recently so if someone could add that that'd be rad and i'll quote it on here.

    Katten said:
    Might be worth adding the below tweet to your (rather impressive) post. It has the link to a gdrive with all the court documents so far, for those who would want to dive deeper.

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    • Comments from Chris Sabat and Funimation employees
    • MrSaturn99

    MrSaturn99

    One Winged Slayer
    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    11,450
    I live in a giant bucket.
    Anime News Network has produced a new article summarizing the past weekend's nonsense, complete with comments from Chris Sabat himself and anonymous FUNi employees. Highlights below:

    Sabat provided Anime News Network with the following statement regarding Huber's allegations.

    "The recent allegations of sexual misconduct at Funimation and OkraTron 5000 are deeply disturbing and completely without merit. These libelous statements are based on groundless rumors and are meant to defame me and my company. Never in my career spanning two decades did I ever witness or participate in such conduct."

    Anime News Network spoke with multiple former employees of Funimation regarding Huber's claims about the licensing company's allegedly sexually charged environment and the allegations against Sabat brought forth in Huber's affidavit. All the former employees denied any knowledge of a "casting couch" involving Sabat or anyone else working at Funimation.
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    Anime News Network contacted Nadolny via social media but did not receive a response by press time. A former long-time Funimation employee told Anime News Network that they believed Nadolny was let go due to unprofessional and disruptive conduct in the recording booth.

    One former long-time employee, who asked not to be named, disagreed with Huber's characterization that Sabat was treated like a "de facto manager" at Funimation, given that he is not an employee but a contractor for the company. They noted that Sabat doesn't maintain an office there and was only at Funimation if he needed to record his own lines. They believe that Sabat may have had input in the talent for the Dragon Ball franchise, but casting would be a group decision overall. Furthermore, they never heard of or saw Sabat solicit any female talent in exchange for roles.

    The staffer attributed the poor opinion of Mignogna among his coworkers as due to his own behavior, not an "inherit bias", and that Mignogna was "difficult to worth with, rude, would derail recording sessions, asked for excessive retakes", and could be "snappy" at directors who attempted to give him input. While Huber cited Mignogna's religion as a point of contention, the staffer noted that there are other employees and talent that are known to belong to the Christian faith and have not encountered the same problems as Mignogna, including longtime Funimation talent Caitlin Glass.
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    The former staffer added that questions regarding Mignogna's sexuality were also spurred by the Fullmetal Alchemist voice actor's behavior. They said they were personally aware of at least three male Funimation employees or voice actors that felt uncomfortable due to Mignogna's "touchiness" with them approximately 12 years ago. They said the "pedophile" rumors began because of Mignogna's conduct at conventions. If staff had made complaints about Mignogna's behavior, the staffer did not hear these complaints directly.

    They also took issue with Huber's statement that he is "intimately familiar with the work environment at Funimation" and said that the conversations Huber mentioned would be unlikely to occur at the Funimation offices due to how voice acting is conducted within the building. Voice actors are typically called in to record solo and would have limited interaction with one another at Funimation. The staffer stated that Huber's knowledge of the company's work environment would be limited to the audio side of the company where he would mostly interact with ADR directors, ADR engineers, and producers. They said they believe Huber is conflating conversations between voice actors at conventions as interactions within Funimation.
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    Huber noted in his affidavit that the Funimation offices did not have sexual harassment policies posted and that he never received a handbook with information on Funimation's policies. According to three former staffers, full-time employees did receive employee handbooks and had to undergo mandatory sexual harassment training while at Funimation. These requirements may not have extended to Funimation's freelance contractors, including its voice talent. One former staffer cited this training as why they took issue with Huber's allegation that incidents described in Funimation's internal investigation happened off company property and thus may fall outside of its purview.

    "If I meet with a co-worker at a bar off company time and that co-worker sexually harasses me, I still have the right to go to HR," they said. The former Funimation employee added that behavior at conventions would still be applicable, as a convention is considered a work-related event.
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    • New co-counsel picked up
    • Katten

    Katten

    Member
    Oct 27, 2017
    2,499
    Full doc here:



    Seem new fella also does not have much relevant experience. Speculation abound from various Twitter comments suggests a few options. Beard might have done this to attempt to not have to show up Friday to show his notary log. He might have been fired from the case. He needs someone who is very clearly not him at his side, as his reputation is/will be in tatters.

    And this will be expensive for Vic.
     
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