Homophobic Mississippi blogger Douglas Handshoe loses again, this time in Mississippi state court: JUDGMENT OF NOVA SCOTIA COURT NOT REPUGNANT, says judge

The owners of Trout Point Lodge, Vaughn Perret and Charles Leary, have announced their trial court victory over Mississippi blogger Douglas K. Handshoe in Hancock County Circuit Court in their effort to enforce a momentous Canadian copyright infringement judgment.

Handshoe had initiated a barrage of litigation and motions to try to prevent this eventuality--including throwing his company Slabbed New Media into Chapter 11 bankruptcy--weaving conspiracy theories and arguing that Canadian law and court decisions were repugnant to Mississippi law. Judge Chris Schmidt found otherwise in an Order issued on January 5, 2017. 

The judge discounted Handshoe's argument that the Nova Scotia Supreme Court had no personal jurisdiction over him and detailed the blogger's numerous appearances and motions in the Canadian action in 2013. Judge Schmidt also embraced comity with Canada, and dismissed Handshoe's arguments that the 2010 SPEECH Act applied to this case. "The judgment of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court is not repugnant to Mississippi Law," stated the Order. 

Handshoe has failed to appreciate the difference between his "free speech" rights--which in Handshoe's universe only he is entitled to--and the protection of intellectual property rights, a mistake that has proved fatal to his unceasing campaign to injure Leary, Perret, and their business Trout Point Lodge. Handshoe was represented by attorney G. Gerald Cruthird. 

More to come . . . 

Second law journal article finds fault in SPEECH Act: Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe

An article in the Journal of International & Comparative Law of the Chicago-Kent College of Law has supported the conclusons of another recent law journal article to find that the SPEECH Act, as aaplied by both the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit in Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe, is overly broad and in sorry need of reform:

the instant case . . . . exposes a potential over inclusivity of the SPEECH Act because of its universal applicability in defamation cases and lack of distinction between illegitimate and legitimate fora. Without the proper ability to distingush between the two types of fora, the SPEECH Act penalizes those plaintiffs filing claims in good faith in appropriate fora.

 The article goes on to speak of a "fundamental failing" of the SPEECH Act, and to state that the Act "should be amended."

Trout Point Lodge was an appelate case of first impression for the 2010 SPEECH Act, which resulted in two American citizens resident in Canada being denied their right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution. An inveterage homophobic blogger, Douglas Handshoe, had targetted Charles Leary and Vaughan Perret for online harassment after his then-web host dropped Handshoe's account for republsihing without permission a copyrighted article that erroneously mentioned Leary & Perret's Nova Scotia business as being involved in a Louisiana corruption scandal.

Other voices on Douglas K. Handshoe of Mississippi

• "what a judge calls an “outrageous and highly reprehensible” homophobic Internet smear campaign from a Mississippi blogger." Toronto Star
• "online attacks are relentless, nasty and homophobic" MSN Canada News 
•  "A Mississippi blogger owes the owners of a Nova Scotia fishing lodge almost a million dollars after targeting them online in a homophobic smear campaign that tied them inexplicably to a corruption scandal." Daily Brew, Yahoo! Canada News
• "the principals behind Trout Point Lodge in Yarmouth County have won a defamation case against an anti-homosexual blogger in Mississippi involved in “a misguided attempt to destroy” the businessmen and their East Kemptville inn." Halifax Chronicle-Herald
• "reprehensible homophobic comments" "grotesque" Judge Walker-Elrod, U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal

Examples of hate speech published by Douglas Handshoe on Slabbed.