A Virginia lawyer used intimidation and bullying tactics, including spurious trademark infringement and defamation claims, to shut down a Web site that criticized him, Public Citizen argued today in lawsuit filed against the lawyer and his firm.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeks an order that would prevent John Dozier of Dozier Internet Law from pursuing defamation and trademark claims against Ronald Riley, who runs the Web site CyberTrialLawyer-Sucks.com. The suit also asks for attorneys’ fees, court costs and $1,000 in punitive damages.
In the past month, three successive Internet hosting companies have taken down Riley’s Web site after each company received a warning letter from Dozier. Among Dozier’s complaints was that Riley used his firm’s name to link to an unrelated Web site, which Dozier claimed was a trademark infringement. In at least two cases, companies were told that if they didn’t take down CyberTrialLawyer-Sucks.com, they would run the risk of having the Web sites of all their clients shut down.
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