Life, Literature, and Litigation

This content has been archived. It may no longer be accurate or relevant.

From The Millions:

When my debut novel came out, I had two firsts—a work of published fiction—and a lawsuit.

I had never thought about lawsuits before. I incorporated everything and everyone I knew or imagined into my fiction, spinning them into characters. At first, to my surprise, most people didn’t know they were any part of my stories. I was sure my mom would be delighted that I used a story in my novel that she had told me a million times over: how at 19, she had been jilted at the altar by the man she thought she loved, marrying a brute on the rebound. She was later visited by her ex, who brought his wife with him, taking my mom aside to whisper to her that he had made a mistake. “It’s really lovely you wrote that,” she told me, “but that character is not anything like me at all. Plus, that never really happened that way.”

My mother might not have recognized herself in my pages, but another family—one I didn’t know—did. A week after my first novel came out, I received a letter from a lawyer. A family, who lived in Pittsburgh, where I was living at the time, just happened to share the same (very common) names I had given my characters, along with the same dramatic conflict. They were suing me for invasion of privacy. I called my publisher, shocked. “I want to countersue.” I cried. “Even if I did know them, which I don’t—how could they imagine I’d be stupid enough to use their names and their situation?” There was a funny silence and then the publisher said, “We’re changing the names in the paperback. We don’t want to hold up the book because of some lawsuit.” I was upset. These people were claiming that I had stolen their life when I hadn’t! And worse, I had to change the names because of them and only then was the lawsuit dropped.

. . . .

When I was asked to write an essay about food issues for an anthology, I wrote about a long-gone ex who monitored my food intake until I was down to 95 pounds, who clouded my vision so I couldn’t see how controlled I was. Of course I knew enough not to use his name, his physical description, or his job, but even so, two weeks after the anthology was published, I got a call from the publisher’s lawyer. Somehow my ex, who I hadn’t seen in years, had read the essay. Though he insisted he had never done a single thing I had mentioned in the essay, he still recognized himself. And he wanted to sue.

“His wife is very upset,” the lawyer told me. “He said that’s why he called. Did you ever tell him you were writing about him?”

“Never,” I said.

“Okay, good,” the lawyer said, “then I can make him go away.”

So was that the key, I wondered? You had to ask people before you wrote about them, even if you disguised them? When I was asked to write an essay for an anthology about infidelity, I played it safe. I asked permission. I was writing about one long, hot brutal summer when my first husband was cheating on me. His sister, who was also my best friend, was orchestrating his trysts without my knowing, and her shrink was stalking her. She not only okayed the piece, she enthusiastically provided extra details. She was fine when my piece was reprinted in a major magazine, fine when it landed me on the Today Show, but when I got a movie option, she immediately threatened me with a lawsuit. I was gobsmacked. “But you gave permission!” I insisted. “And it’s my point of view of what happened!” I had to hire a lawyer from The Author’s Guild who assured me that because she had known about the story for so long, because it had been out there, she had no recourse. And he wrote a polite letter to her to tell her so.

Link to the rest at The Millions

PG doesn’t do litigation any more, but earlier in his legal career, he spent a lot of time in court and enjoyed most of his experiences there.

As an aside, it is almost always more fun to be a lawyer than a client when you walk into a courtroom.

As yet another aside, from his experience representing other lawyers and one judge in litigation matters, PG can attest that most lawyers make terrible clients.

That said, how do you avoid being sued and having to go to court as some lawyer’s client?

While there’s no bulletproof method that always works, based upon PG’s lengthy legal experience, following are some rules which will reduce your chances of having to go to court:

  1. Don’t be a crazy person.
  2. Don’t be born into a family full of crazy people.
  3. Don’t hang around with crazy people and, in particular, don’t marry a crazy person.
  4. If you are a lawyer, don’t represent crazy people.
  5. If you are a doctor, Hippocrates notwithstanding, don’t have crazy patients. (Psychiatrists are on their own here.)
  6. If you are an author, don’t write about crazy people you have known.

The large majority of the general population doesn’t go to court. Most people live and die without seeing the inside of a courtroom except for Judge Judy on TV.

In PG’s experience, the incidence of crazy people in courtrooms is significantly higher than their distribution among the general population.

This doesn’t mean that non-crazy people aren’t dragged into court on a regular basis.

However, if you spend a day in an active courtroom, you’ll see more people who aren’t quite right than you would if you spent the day in a dentist’s office or grocery store.

The problem with avoiding crazy people (or accepting them as clients for legal work) is that crazy people can be very cunning about concealing their true character.

Being crazy doesn’t always mean they aren’t intelligent. An experienced crazy person understands that drooling on the floor will put people off, so he/she/they/zie/sie/ey/ve/tey/e will try to appear normal and sometimes succeed long enough to make it through a marriage ceremony, meeting with a lawyer or even, on occasion, an appearance before a judge.

That’s about all the wisdom PG can generate today, so he must now devolve to his normal self.

Given that the collective wisdom of visitors to TPV is vast, insights into crazy people and how to avoid them (or any other subject) are always welcome in the comments.

 

 

 

37 thoughts on “Life, Literature, and Litigation”

  1. I needed a bad guy name. I mentioned it on a blog, and someone volunteered. I made him put it in writing. I thanked him – and used his name.

    Then I put a statement in the book to that effect. And added that everyone else was fictional. Hope that’s enough.

    You have to be thinking ahead.

    While I was at it, I used the situation: someone thinks the author is talking about him, and when she comes out from behind her pseudonym, he stalks her, “Just to talk to her.” With a tire iron.

  2. I’ve been in a courtroom four times, each as a member of a jury. My experiences were evenly divided between crazy and stupid. You forgot stupid.

      • In my experience, stupid usually came from opposing counsel. And sometimes from me.

        I had one client who used stupid as a weapon. Dumber than a rock in deposition. Crazy like a fox on the witness stand. Smiled — no, grinned the whole time. Scary.

      • I don’t believe it’s a subset. It’s a side-by-side venn diagram. Someone can be stupid, or crazy, or both.

        • Are you sure it’s not backwards?

          I tend to think stupid can be curable.
          But crazy isn’t- they may be good at hiding it, but soon enough, it comes back.

            • Many years ago, when I accepted my first management position, my dad offered some advice: “No matter how careful you are, no matter how many precautions you take, you can’t prevent stupid people from doing stupid things.” I don’t know if that was original or if he’d picked it up from someone else, but I found it to be very accurate.

              • I was once handed a piece of equipment and told, “The manufacturer made this fool-proof. However, it is not flaming idiot proof.” I’ve kept that distinction in mind over the years.

  3. Is it just me or is the fact that the author of the article has been sued multiple times by unrelated people a sign that she is not as good at hiding who she’s talking about as she seems to think she is.
    On an unrelated note, what’s the betting that the unknown family, The ex-boyfriend and the ex-husband all decide to sue her For writing a millions article about them.

    • And this could just be a story to make a point, “Tales of woe I’ve heard of/from other writers”

      And I liked the control freak trying to claim he wasn’t one – so why was he still carefully watching what his ex was up to? I could see her lawyer having way too much fun with that.

      Though you’re correct as well, the OP might be one of those that likes to see how much mud they can sling before getting caught/called out for it. (And that gives her even more attention!)

      Like PG said, avoid crazy people (but be very careful not to make it look like you’re trying to avoid them – because then they’ll come after you! 😉 )

  4. This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real persons, places, things or events is purely coincidental.

    (Except Bob, Bob annoyed me one time to many and here’s where I get my revenge!)

    ((I have yet to use ‘Bob’ in my book …))

    (((I’m saving him for the really bad part ….)))

  5. Don’t be a crazy person.
    Don’t be born into a family full of crazy people.
    Don’t hang around with crazy people and, in particular, don’t marry a crazy person.

    You haven’t heard about Peyton Quinn or Massad Ayoob, have you?

    Take care

    • That riffed off John Farnam’s advice for staying out of trouble:

      “Don’t go stupid places. Don’t hang out with stupid people. Don’t do stupid things.”

      If you heed John Farnam’s advice, you usually don’t need Jeff Cooper’s advice.

  6. Don’t hang around with crazy people and, in particular, don’t marry a crazy person.

    I once had a teacher who objected when I gave that same advice about not marrying crazy people during my Power Point presentation on marriage** 🙂 She didn’t think I was being fair, even though I did specify “crazy people who aren’t trying to get treatment.”

    **I didn’t take the assignment too seriously, so I used Homer Simpson, Cliff Huxtable, and that guy who played House’s friend on “House” to illustrate assorted points. Bouguerou’s painting of Orestes being pursued by the Furies made an appearance, too.

  7. I read “4. If you are a lawyer, don’t represent crazy people.” and I was going to say…

    “The problem with avoiding crazy people (or accepting them as clients for legal work) is that crazy people can be very cunning about concealing their true character.”

    Yes, that. I agree completely!

  8. “2. Don’t be born into a family full of crazy people.”

    PG, it’s a little late for that advice now dude.

    • If you believe in reincarnation, there is always next time.

      I have a lawyer friend who specializes in karmic law. If you hire him and have a bad life next time around, you can get your money back.

      • Nice. The banking part sounds a little complicated, but if nothing else, that’s a great story idea with a little tweaking.

    • The Roulette Wheel of Life served up double zeroes for me on that one, too. And then I realized that just because I was related to them I didn’t have to associate with them, or even know where they lived.

      Amazing how simply not returning phone calls or answering the door for a few years can simplify your life…

    • Or confusing “write what you know” with “write who you know”.

      Tuckerizing is an art.

  9. BTW, PG, by the immutable canons of just exactly who is crazy, the moderator of a gaggle of opinionated independent writers may not be exempt from the moniker. Just saying…

  10. So many threads,so little time…

    Timeliness? every lawyer is great at telling you what you shouldn’t have done based on your current situation. Forecasting? not so much 🙂

    And isnt the adage about not marrying crazier *than yourself*?

    A writer I know thinks the best way to avoid attribute recognition is to give the character a raging STD. Then nobody says it’s them 🙂

    P.

  11. In case it helps someone… I’m careful when naming characters, especially problematic ones, to do a quick Google search for the name, occupation and location. It also catches the accidental use of a semi-famous person’s name that I’d forgotten I knew.

  12. I’ve never sued or been sued, but I have been a witness in trials and administrative law hearings, including one criminal trial and once as an expert witness. I’ve been deposed eight times. I wouldn’t call any of it fun, nor would I call it unpleasant.

    One of my life triumphs was when I was a witness of fact when our client was sued by their construction contractor. The opposition attorney was berating me about whether I attended a certain meeting in our office. I said I didn’t. I set things up then had others run the meeting to help develop their skill-sets. I was around the corner in my office if they needed me. The attorney got very angry, and stormed back to his table and pulled out an Acco-press binder and flipped through it. I realized he was looking at my deposition, from six months previously, hoping to catch me in a lie. At last he looked and said, “Congratulations, sir. That’s exactly what you said in your deposition.”

Comments are closed.