So do I dread? Feh! I dread not.

I know there are some people (a lot of people) who take these sorts of threats very seriously, but I'm not one of them. I've known too many lawyers over the years. They come to dinner at my mother's house and tell stories about absurd cases, and we all laugh about the desperate losers who try to make a living by filing frivolous lawsuits.

The paranoiacs who quake at this kind of tomfoolery will point out anecdotal stories about shocking rulings. "It happens!" they warn. What these bumpkins forget it that for every bizarre ruling you hear about there are a hundred thousand unbizarre rulings. FRIVOLOUS LAWSUIT DISMISSED BY REASONABLE JUDGE just doesn't make a good headline.

It is alleged that I have slandered a man in California by using his name for the protagonist in an ancient short story of mine from 1993. It is labelled as a work of fiction. The man's name is not uncommon. Here is a passage that was quoted to me as particularly offensive:

We used to tease [Name of Plaintiff] all of the time, calling him names and throwing snowballs at him in the winter. One time we stripped him naked and made him climb a tree and rub sap into his ears. One time we made him stick his tongue to a frosty fence post or we swore we would kill his toy. One time we bludgeoned him to death with rocks by the creek and then roasted his bruised body in a firepit in the ravine, then cut up the crispy meat and fed it to the ducks.

As a final punchline, this poor soul believes his basis for litigation is the law in his home country...of which I am not citizen (California Penal Code § 653m(a) - Obscene, Threatening or Annoying Communications). Perhaps he's under the mistaken impression that his name is the kind of intellectual property protected by the trans-national reach of Clinton's DMCA.

The best part about this excitable gentleman's transparent strategy is that he's chosen to threaten to sue my animation production corporation for material published on my personal website, perhaps having concluded (erroneously) that the corporation represents a sweeter source of riches than my own shallow pockets. Needless to say, the two entities (my corporation and my family) do not share the same website. There is no connection between them other than the fact that I work for my corporation, and I'm in my family. Demonstrating that StoryZoo Studios is somehow liable for my big mouth flapping on my own time seems like it would be a fairly steep challenge, legally speaking.

Besideswhich, can someone with a non-unusual name actually imagine they can profit by this kind of nonsense? I mean, c'mon. If that were truly the case, every man named John Smith would be a billionaire already, having successfully sued the bejesus out of damn near every publisher this side of China. Plaintiff: "This school textbook defames me by suggesting that I have stolen an umbrella. Consider the following quotation: 'John Smith left the party with the wrong umbrella.' I demand recompense! Recompense!"

Mercy.

I've sent off my reply, from StoryZoo Studios: "I'm sorry, but the document you have identified is not a part of our website. We are an animation production facility located in Ontario, Canada. Please contact us again if you have a question regarding animation production."

Will he write back to my personal account? We'll see. Goodness knows I have no intention of complying with the complainant's demand that I remove the offending story from the web within thirty days.

My mother's coming for tea. I'll have her queue up a beagle, just in case. I don't imagine I'd have any response to another personal e-mail, but if I do happen to get something in writing from a law firm I must be prepared to bitch-slap this business down fast and hard. (Like in this instance.)

Any thoughts, my fellow typists of the Scooposphere?