A Web site built to criticize Orix Capital Markets LLC is now under the company’s control, and the family responsible for the content of the site was found to have libeled Orix in one of the largest of such cases in Texas.
A federal jury in Dallas found that Cyrus Rafizadeh and his family’s company that was also named in the suit had defamed and libeled Orix with the www.preditorix.com. The jury awarded the company $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages.
Preditorix.com came online two years ago after Orix foreclosed on an apartment complex in Louisiana owned by the Rafizadeh family. A Louisiana court ruled that the foreclosure was legal even though the family was current on mortgage payments because they had failed to maintain the property.
Tim Gavin, the attorney who represented the Rafizadehs and their company named in the lawsuit, told the Dallas Morning News “that the concern should be that verdicts such as this may chill free expression on the Internet at a time when financial institutions are causing pain for families.”
The story in the Dallas newspaper suggests that juries might be more open to this type of suit, but I think that the scope of the decision will be limited to Web sites that are set up to attack specific companies, not sites that are designed to allow consumers to vent about their bad experiences with any company.
