Homophobic Mississippi blogger Douglas Handshoe shows "a plain misunderstanding of copyright law"; federal court dismisses more of his allegations involving "gay robots"

Douglas Handshoe CPA

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi has just dismissed the remnants of homophobic Mississippi blogger Douglas Handshoe's lawsuit against a Louisiana process server and a civil rights attorney. Since 2013, "forensic accountant" Handshoe has taken to filing lawsuits replete with conspiracy theory in addition to targetting opponents on his blog, "Slabbed" with adjudicated false criminal allegations. Handshoe has sued at least 16 persons and companies, some of them twice since May, 2013. He has also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his purported company "Slabbed New Media." Thus far, Mississippi courts have been deferential to Handshoe's questionable legal maneuvers, in the eyes of legal commentators, much too much so. That epoch has now ended.

One of the people Handshoe sued in Mississippi is Chris Yount, a Louisiana private investigator and process server who served Handshoe with civil process, but had no connection to the unrelated lawsuits he was serving on Handshoe. In apparent retaliation for Yount simply doing his job, in early 2014 accountant Handshoe delved into the court files of Yount's divorce case in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal has summarized the relevant facts in two recent decisions:

On February 13, 2014, Mr. Handshoe published on www.slabbed.org a pornographic drawing authored by Mr. Yount's 13-year-old son that had previously been filed with the court as part of Mr. Yount's divorce proceedings in the 24th Judicial District Court. Captions and comments authored by Mr. Handshoe and Mr. Truitt underneath the drawing described its graphic nature and clearly identified the author as a minor child and the divorce proceedings in which he was involved.

Subsequent to this initial publication, the trial judge overseeing the divorce proceedings sealed parts of the record, including the pornographic drawing, and ordered the drawing removed from the internet. Notice of copyright infringement pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was sent to the webhost of www.slabbed.org, who also provided Mr. Handshoe with a copy of the trial court's order. On February 18, 2014, the blog post containing the drawing as well as the www.slabbedorg website was taken down by the webhost in response to the copyright infringement notice and violations of the webhost's terms of service. Mr. Handshoe subsequently found a new webhost, brought the website back online, and republished the posts containing the pornographic drawing. On at least two separate occasions in Februaryand March of 2014 after the evidence had been placed under seal by the court, Mr. Handshoe authored additional posts where he published the drawing together with comments that clearly identified the minor child author and his father.

Handshoe has said in court filings that the drawing in question showed a "line of gay robots" engaged in questionable conduct, although no one else has opined as to the sexual orienation of the alleged robots. Daniel Abel has alleged in court documents that Handshoe is obsessed with the sexuality of other men; such allegations have not yet been proved in a court of law.

Consequently, Yount, with Abel acting as his attorney, sued Handshoe in Louisiana for defamation and invasion of privacy, among other things. In that case, both Handshoe and his co-defendant Bobby Truitt have had their anti-SLAPP special motions to strike denied by the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal. (SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation").

In reaction to being sued by Yount, Handshoe filed suit against Abel and Yount in Mississippi federal court, ironically alleging they had abused court process and made knowing misrepresentations under the Copyright Act for sending the above-mentioned notice of copyright infringement.

Ultimately, for unknown reasons, Abel never responded to Handshoe's amended complaint that was allegedly mailed to him, and a few days ago Handshoe had him noted in default by the clerk of court. Handshoe then filed a motion for default. That spurred the federal court judge into action.

Within two days, on December 16, 2015, Judge Keith Starrett took steps not only on the default motion, but sua sponte on issues of jurisdiction and the failure of Handshoe to state adequate claims in his legal pleading: "the Court does not find that Plaintiff has stated a claim on which relief can be granted for his misrepresentation claim under 28 U.S.C. § 512(f)"; "Plaintiff’s claims of malicious prosecution and abuse of process for filing the appellant brief in the Louisiana action will be dismissed without prejudice, and Plaintiff’s Motion for Default Judgment will be denied as to these claims"; "because the Court has neither diversity nor supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s remaining abuse of process claim, the claim will be dismissed without prejudice and default judgment will be denied as to this claim". As to the Copyright Act intentional misrepresentation claim, Judge Starret wrote:

In his Amended Complaint, Plaintiff admits that the drawing at issue was drawn and published by the minor child on whose behalf Abel and Yount are claiming a copyright. (Amended Complaint [27] at ¶¶ 14, 17.) Plaintiff alleges that there is no copyright. Section 512(f) makes liable “[a]ny person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section . . . that material or activity is infringing.” Under Plaintiff’s theory, Abel is liable under this section because the minor child held no copyright in the drawing. This, however, is a plain misunderstanding of copyright law. Plaintiff admits that the minor child was the author of the drawing. (Amended Complaint [27] at ¶ 14.) By that fact alone, the minor child possesses a copyright in the drawing under 17 U.S.C. § 102(a)(5). Plaintiff does not allege in his complaint that his use of the drawing was authorized by either the copyright owner or law, and asserts only that a copyright does not exist. As the Court must find that a copyright does exist, Plaintiff has failed to plead a misrepresentation under § 512(f). Additionally, Plaintiff does not adequately allege the amount of damages he has suffered as a direct result of his web host relying on any misrepresentation by Abel and Yount. As such, the Court must deny Plaintiff’s Motion for Default Judgment.

The federal judge also issued an Order to Show Cause to Handshoe. He now has 21 days by which he has to remedy what look like radical defects in what is left of his wrecked lawsuit. The countdown begins, tick tock.

Order to Show Cause directed at Douglas Handshoe

Handshoe has admitted that the sexually-explicit drawing in question was authored by Chris Yount's son, and the court has found "the minor child possesses a copyright in the drawing under 17 U.S.C. § 102(a)(5)." Attorney Abel was ordered by the Louisiana family court to do whatever was necessary to have the drawing removed from publication on Slabbed. Submitting a copyright infringement notificiation certainly seems like a reasonable way to achieve what the Louisiana court ordered, and where was the "misrepresentation" Handshoe claims?

In addition, legal observers say there simply exists no "abuse of process" tort in presenting the Louisiana court order to Handshoe's web host because this constituted an extra-judicial act not involving the court system or process. Simply showing a court order to a third party is not an "abuse of process."

One has to wonder when further legal action against Handshoe for abuse of process and malicious prosecution will begin? Perhaps the citizens of Mississippi should be upset with Handshoe for wasting taxpayer dollars and clogging the local judicial systems with lawsuits that keep being dismissed?

Federal judge allows homophobic blogger & legal clown Handshoe to sue Loyola University of New Orleans after sitting on motion to dismiss

District Court Judge Keith Starrett has approved homophobic blogger & St. Stanislaus alumnus Douglas Handshoe's motion to amend his lawsuit against civil rights attorney Daniel Abel to include as defendants Loyola University of New Orleans, the associate director of its legal clinic Ramona Fernandez, a process server, and a law school student. Handshoe's allegations against the university include abuse of process and malicious prosecution.

On Friday, March 13, 2015, Handshoe actually filed his amended complaint in Starrett's Mississippi court.

Judge Starrett issued the order on March 10, 2015, in part, he stated because Mr. Abel had failed to file an opposition to Handshoe's motion to amend the legal action to include the new defendants and claims. The lawsuit was previously only based on alleged misrepresentation under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The judge also said, however, that under federal law plaintiffs are generally allowed to make a first amendment.

The purported copyright violation by Abel was for "misrepresentation" in a take down notice sent to Handshoe's web host HostGator. As the Technology & Marketing Law Blog recently stated this will be a difficult case to make out:

 To discourage abuses of the notice-and-takedown system, Congress enacted 17 USC 512(f) to create a new cause of action for sending bogus takedown notices.

512(f) was a good idea, but it has failed terribly in the field. In the 2004 Rossi case, the Ninth Circuit gutted 512(f) by requiring 512(f) plaintiffs show that a takedown notice sender lacked subjective good faith. Absent a “smoking gun” email (which, almost certainly, will be found only in discovery and only if the 512(f) case survives a motion to dismiss), it’s virtually impossible for a plaintiff to prove the absence of subjective good faith.

Mr. Abel had filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on August 6, 2014. Judge Starrett never ruled on the motion until the same day he decided in favor of Handshoe; that is more than 7 months after Abel's motion was filed. Legal observers say this is an extraordinary amount of time for the judge not to rule on a motion challenging jurisdiction. Federal court rules say motions on jurisdiction supposedly have priority. By contrast, Judge Starrett ruled on Handshoe's motion to amend in less than a couple of weeks since the deadline passed for Abel to file his opposition.

Legal clown Douglas Handshoe, CPA

The legal controversy is described in Handshoe's rambling legal complaint where he appears to allege that "abuse of process" and "malicious prosecution" occurred when Loyola participated in filing an ongoing appeal to the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal of a judge's order granting Handshoe's anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) motion in a defamation suit filed on behalf of a father and his minor child. Handshoe calls the appeal brief filed by the university legal clinic "scandalous."

Remarkably, Canadian court documents show that Handshoe was admonished in 2013 by judges there while he was a defendant in a copyright infringement and defamation lawsuit precisely for filing "rude" and scandalous materials with the court. Handshoe ultimately lost in that case, and also lost an attempt to have the resulting proceeding against him removed to federal court under the SPEECH Act.

Loyola's legal clinic was appointed by the Louisians state divorce court to represent the minor child's interests. The father--a process server who has served Handshoe with lawsuits on several occasions--was involved in a divorce proceeding. In what distinctly appears like payback for having served him with legal process, Handshoe took items from the divorce court file, including a drawing by the minor child, for publication on his blog. The court record was shortly thereafter sealed apparently due to Handshoe's publications on his blog. The father and Loyola jointly filed the appeal brief.

Legal observers say it is entirely unclear if Handshoe has actually stated any facts or law in his lawsuit sufficient to constitute "abuse of process" and "malicious prosecution." In addition, such complaints are usually brought within the court where the alleged abuse and malcicious prosecution occured. The fact that an appeal is ongoing also makes Handshoe's claims before Judge Starrett appear dubious. 

This started when Handshoe and Jack "Bobby" Truitt were sued by the process server, Chris Yount, for internet defamation. Handshoe and his Covington attorney Truitt allegedly defamed Yount through innuendo published on Slabbbed that he had molested the minor child. Truitt allegedly participated in identifying Yount and his child by posting comments on Slabbed. Handshoe claims the child's drawing showed "a young child being sodomized by a line of robots." On his blog he had published that the drawing depicted a male child being sodomized. The Louisiana divorce court apparently did not agree, and any reasonable person looking at the drawing could not come to that conlusion, which appears to be motivated by what attorney Abel termed Handshoe's personal obsession with other men's sexuality. Truitt has, since Handshoe's intention to sue Loyola became public, withdrawn the Truitt Law Firm's advertising from Handshoe's web site, distancing himself from the blog. Truitt graduated from Loyola Law School.

An open question remains as to whether Handshoe will "man up"--one of his favorite phrases--and actually serve Loyola, Fernandez, and the others with the lawsuit, or if he's simply engaged in using the courts to chill speech he doesn't like.

According to the district court order, Abel is free to again file documents seeking dismissals of the lawsuit, including possibly seeking attorney's fees, which started when Abel served a takedown notice on Handshoe's web host pursuant to an order from the Louisiana court. The aim was to have the sensitive drawing removed from publication on Handshoe's blog. Allegedly, Handshoe published the drawing yet again in another blog post. Remarkably, Judge Starrett also earlier denied Abel's motion to remove the sexually-explicit image from the public court file available online. 

Abel claims he has no contacts with Mississippi. One can only wonder how Handshoe and his wife Jennifer Handshoe or any other parents would respond to having their child's drawing published prominently on the internet, let alone alongside alleged accusations about sexual molestation.

Loyola, attorney Fernandez, and the other defendants will now likely have to answer Handshoe as well. They are likely to seek dismissal on various grounds as well as fees & costs.

If the case goes forward, it will pose numerous legal questions, including the boundaries of the First Amendment and a Mississippi federal court's power to interfere in the judicial process of Louisiana state courts. Handshoe's action could be seen as an illegal collateral attack. Handshoe's motives, privacy concerns and the protection of the minor child will be important issues.