An interesting defamation lawsuit was recently filed in Oakland County Circuit Court, just in time for bow season which opens today for deer.

Last year, an archery company here in nearby Holly, MI resolved to revamp their website.  They turned to Five Sparrows, a web design and marketing firm based in Heartland, MI.

Apparently, Jim Beasley, owner of Spot Shooter Archery, was not satisfied with the performance of the web design firm, telling the Oakland Press that customers could not access products and the owner could not change prices within the online store created by Five Sparrows.

After some obvious "back-and-forth", Beasley had enough and posted a negative review on G+ as well as sent a letter to the local B2B group that connected the two businesses in the first place.  Five Sparrows' demand for a retraction was ignored and a defamation lawsuit followed.

The lawsuit, now assigned to Oakland Circuit Judge James Alexander, seeks damages in excess of the jurisdictional amount of $25,000.  Beasley's lawyer is none other than our friend down the street here in Clarkston; Robert Kostin.

Although this case was initially assigned to Judge Leo Bowman, we suspect it was re-assigned to Judge Alexander with a determination this was business litigation belonging to the new Business Court.

This litigation will be interesting.  In a defamation lawsuit, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that the statements made were false and were made intentionally or with reckless disregard for the truth.  Truth, by the way, is a valid defense to a defamation suit.

We here at the Law Blogger anticipate that Mr. Kostin will file a motion for summary disposition to dismiss this case.  And we like his chances as we feel this type of suit, always difficult to prove, is especially susceptible to dismissal given the facts of this case.

The Internet is nothing if not a massive functional forum for free speech.  Reviews of local businesses are crucial to the hyper-local evolution of commerce and trade.

Take a look at Spot Shooter's web site for yourself to see whether Five Sparrows constructed a functioning web site.  If you wanted to get outside today for the first day of bow season, would you be able to purchase your equipment on-line from Spot Shooter Archery?  If not, whose fault would that be?

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Recently, the Oakland County Circuit Court announced the creation of a business court similar to those implemented by Kent and Macomb Counties over the past year.  The business court here in Oakland County has been "operational" since April 1, 2012, and is slated to continue as a pilot program through 2014.

The business court's "pilot" status was created by an administrative order issuing from the Oakland County Circuit Court.  The business court is designed to study the effectiveness of implementing a specialized case management system to handle specified business-related litigation.

Judges sitting on the Oakland Circuit's court of general jurisdiction (i.e. civil-criminal dockets) will all receive cases on the business court docket.  To be assigned to the business court, a case must involved alleged damages of $500,000.

There are many disputes that will be excluded from the business court.  These will include consumer claims against businesses, personal injury and wrongful death cases, medical and legal malpractice law suits, and commercial landlord tenant cases, among a handful of other types of disputes.

So what's going to be different in the business court?  Parties, for example, will be required to make various pre-trial disclosures early in the case [i.e. within 42-days of the initial pleadings]; a joint pre-trial report will be submitted to the business court; an initial conference will be scheduled within 21-days after the pre-trial report is submitted; and the judge will issue a final scheduling order after reviewing the pre-trial report.

The idea behind this modified procedure is to identify and hone the issues and to schedule the court's resources in accord with the specific issues to be presented in the case.

Given the budgetary restraints imposed on the circuit court in the past few years, cutting millions from the budget, the Oakland County business court design had to be cost effective.  This is why there will be no specially appointed judge assigned to a business docket.

Essentially, this specialized court will have to run within the confines of the existing circuit court.

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