Nervy lawsuit against William Freund's family.

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Ya but we're really not responsible for Will's actions, ya he made a threat on here, but are we as a ONLINE community legally obligated to report it? We're not professionals so the answer is no. People have come on to support forums like these and say stuff like that all the time because they are an emotional wreck. This is probably why it was not taken seriousily. Furthermore we have no direct contact information with the assailiant other than IP address which doesn't always do us any good considering he could be posting from practically anywhere.

All in all this is a sad situation and I don't quite understand how sueing us is going to make things any better. However I don't think it will come down to having our site shut down and monitored. We're here to support each other, not form a clan or a cult.

I don't know anything about William, but if he had a phsyciatrist, ESPECIALLY if drugs were perscribed, THAT should be the first person prosecuted. It IS a well known fact that those drugs can drastically affect emotion and actions, and can lead to homicidal and suicidal tendancies. ALSO, they ALL say to monitor doses and actions.

As for any attacks against Wrong Planet, I doubt that will work out unless they can show that some responsible part was notified of a clear and present danger, or someone here incited William to do it. Sadly, forums HAVE been prosecuted for moderating an not moderating posts!

Any questions as to why I HATE lawyers?!?!?

Steve

I'm with those who think that if anyone should be sued, it should be the psychiatrist who was treating William as that doctor should have been closely monitoring him. It's well-known that antidepressants lead to suicidal or homicidal thoughts, especially in young adults.

It just shows how sue-happy some people are, even going after this site even though people usually don't provide more information than an e-mail address as it's safest not to post personal information such as an address. IP addresses don't mean much because people can post from anywhere, and not always at home.

It is unfortunate that they are suing WP, but it doesn't surprise me in the least.

You have *got* to be kidding. He *killed* their family members. Whether or not he is on the autistic spectrum is absolutely not the issue here. The issue is that two people were *murdered*. It's common to sue when people are murdered like this. Even if the person is not convicted there are often civil suits. (O.J. Simpson comes to mind.)

I do think that suing a support group is going too far though. And possibly the gun supplier, since he had a clean record.

This has nothing to do with him being on the spectrum (which by the way hasn't even been proved, has it?)

This has to do with the fact that he ***killed two people***. And families of murdered people commonly bring civil suit against whomever they can. I agree that it's wrong to sue a support group, because how can the moderators know the state of mind of everyone on a support group, or even where the people really are? I bet that part will be thrown out.

**No one*** is saying that people with AS must not speak to each other!! It's not what the lawsuit appears to be about!! !! The reason they're suiing wrongplanet.net appears to be because they think the moderators should have been able to predict what he was going to do and notify the police, or something. And as they did try to call his parents, hopefully that part of the lawsuit will be thrown out.

Why are some people on here seeing this as a threat to people with AS talking to each other, or as some kind of NT thing to keep AS people away from each other?

It can be a threat to the idea of **any** kind of support board if moderators of said boards are going to be held liable if someone who had been posting commits a crime. But I don't see where **anyone** in the lawsuit is saying that "people with AS must not speak to each other" or must only speak to each other with NT supervision, or anything so silly. IMHO, this isn't about AS **at all**, but more about support boards in general and what moderators should be expected to do or not do if someone on the board is making threats. Again, I think that part of the suit should be thrown out and hopefully will be.

The parents are bereaved, they're grieving. (Sorry, I don't see them as selfish. Their familly members were deprived of their *lives*.) Because the person who did the killings is dead, there will be no trial. So they're doing a civil suit, which often happens in these cases where there is no conviction (whether because the murderer is dead, or because they were acquitted). O.J. Simpson is an example; he was acquitted, but Nicole Brown Simpson's family sued him for wrongful death.

As far as the gun thing: I don't think the lawsuit said that anyone with AS shouldn't have a gun; someone in that Trenchcoat Chronicles forum that someone linked to was saying that, probably because they think AS is a "disorder" and they don't really know what they're talking about. But if someone is threatening suicide or murder and under psychiatric care, if there is any way for that to be logged somewhere so that it would come up in a database, than that person should not be able to buy a gun, whether they are AS or NT.

I agree that hopefully people won't think this is about AS and that William Freund killed because he was an Aspie or that Aspies are killers. What really bothers me too is "was he really an Aspie?" Just because he thought he was, and was on an AS forum, doesn't make it so. He could have been a paranoid schizophrenic who thought everyone was against him and that he never had friends. There are probably a number of mental disorders that can cause people to think they have no friends and everyone hates them, and also these disorders can make the person seem weird to others and make it hard for the person to have friends once the disorder becomes worse. And even if he had AS, it wasn't the AS that caused him to kill, but his mental illess. So yeah, it is really disturbing that the AS angle is even being brought up at all.

I'm not sure what your point is, Norah. So, people sue people who commit criminal acts. William Freund killed himself, so there is no one directly responsible to sue. They are trying to sue people they believe are indirectly responsible.
It's relevant that he identified as Asperger's because he talked about his thoughts and alleged intentions here at this forum and the Smith's believe WP should have notified them. Yeah, like that was even possible.
I imagine they are going after the parents because he may be have incapacitated (incompetent) at the time. There may be some merit there, if Freund was as blatant as people say he was. Even though he was an adult, he may have been doing other things to show he was a clear and present danger. For example, I believe Andrea Yates' husband is responsible for Andrea being alone (and responsible for) with her children while being severely mentally disabled and unfit.
They may not be liable for him like he was a child but knowing about his condition and not reporting it. Then again, California isn't the easiest place to get help for adults.

Norah, I posted while you were posting your 3rd reply. I see your point but I think you're missing why people are suggesting this is a "they don't want us to talk".
This is a rare forum for people who otherwise might not talk to people that they have something so important in common.
People don't sue for small amounts and even they lost, legal fees can be very expensive. If it went as far as shutting this place down, people would lose one of their few outlets.

Norah, an old report about this incident referred to AS as a rare mental disorder - that paints a lovely picture doesn't it. Also - this kid was on another forum not related to AS - why aren't they being sued? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Freund. It shouldn't be about AS - but it seems like they are trying to make it out that way because people with AS (or anyone with a psychiatric condition or under psychiatric care) do not have to "register" with anyone. The gun laws generally pertain I think to those who have been committed involuntary to a mental hospital or declared legally insane. So why do they think this dealer is responsible since he checked - unless they want to make some sort of statement about this. And KimJ is quite right - regardless of whether they win or not - it costs money.

Well here's a small legal barrier that will help the site's case in an event of a lawsuit:

So if William Freund was saying things that was inappropriate or threatening to do something, it's purely his liability and not the site's. Therefore if his statements reflected hatred on someone and he did commit the crime afterwards, this clause still applies.

Alex, you should consider fortifying the responsibilities terms by having a clause which basically states that, "As a user, this site isn't accountable for actions you commit outside of this site and is solely and personally your responsibility to abide by local, state, federal and international laws".
Sounds obvious, but it creates a legal defense for lawsuits like this, and makes this site virtually impossible to sue. But considering any court case will go by what the Terms of Service were when this incident happened, this cannot be used to help this case, but help potential future cases.

Last edited by Nexus on 18 Nov 2006, 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... highlight=

If you guys look in the original discussion about the incident many people here will grief stricken, and regret not doing anything. If these parents decide to go after the site, that might hold up in court. I mean it's not like we encouraged him to do it or anything. in fact I think ghostistix was going to try to track him down to contact his parents about his intentions.

Feeling responsible and being responsible are two entirely different things. Those people lived in an urban area and even though the guy's name was available, it was too common to locate anyone.
Had there been more time, it might have been possible to locate the guy's computer but that could take a while and a lot of willingness on thepart of investigators.
Again, we are talking about virtual strangers who happen upon this guy's threats.

Hmm. Nice family. Consult an attorney, and get together a countersuit. It's obvious they're just trying to cash in, and I think that the charges that could be filed against them can be highly lucrative. Fight back, ret*ds.

This is not good. Not good at all.

Well, at least alex's dad is a lawyer (I think).

This suit won't hold water. To my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, a forum cannot be held legally responsible for the actions of its members because of the nature of the internet-- especially when trained mental health professionals are not associated with the site. There are people going around ALL OVER the net threatening similar things with no intention of doing them. There's also the constant threat of trolls on the internet and so members are not necessarily to be believed.

Originally, many people thought WillFreund1 was a troll because of his post titles (outrageous things). Once it was confirmed he wasn't really a troll, people started trying to help him, INCLUDING the moderators. We tried to convince him to go to the ER and get into in-patient. Others tried to find his information and address and someone to contact.

Sean was the member who first saw what had happened since he lives in/near Orange County, CA, and saw the clip on the news. Luckily/unluckily Will had used his real name for his handle otherwise WP would've never been the wiser and this whole suit would be currently logged at the parents and the gun provider.

Once we got hold of ourselves, we agreed it was best for alex to contact the local PD and offer to hand over all Will's posts. There was also a bit of a mess to handle with a WP member having called up the LA Times and essentially "snitching".

And after that incident, we also agreed it was best from now on to take ALL suicide/homicide threats seriously and to follow up on them as best we could. Unfortunately this forum had to learn from a mistake. It wasn't a deliberate mistake that we didn't do more. It was because we just didn't know any better and are not trained professionals.

As I've pointed out earlier, however, Will psychiatrist IS a trained professional and yet strangely his name hasn't turned up on that lawsuit list.