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The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter announced today the settlement of the lawsuit filed against them by the Loan Center of California. This is great news for all bloggers who have sought to tell the truth while covering the mortgage industry implosion. When the lawsuit was first announced many bloggers (including myself) wondered aloud about the stability of blogging about real issues in a litigious environment. And while I always thought the suit was frivolous; this settlement is welcome news to all of us who have covered the mortgage morass.
Aaron over at the site makes a good point that it is still frightening that the suit was not thrown out under Anti-SLAPP legislation; but nonetheless the settlement brings to an end the tenuous stand-off between LCC and the leading site covering the mortgage implosion.
As is made clear by the costs we faced in the suit, providing a forum for whistleblowing and debate on critical contemporary issues remains a risky and expensive proposition. It is virtually “death upon challenge” for any individual or small-scale operation. It is thus unclear to us why anyone would ever get involved in such an enterprise if they truly understood the peril they were placing themselves in. We certainly would not have, if we knew then what we know now.
Congrats Aaron for settling without litigation and may you (and all of the other bloggers) continue to be protected in the coverage of the mortgage meltdown.
HEY!
Since this thing isnt going to court, what happened to all the money readers donated? I think it was like 40K or something….???
Just because it didn’t go to court doesn’t mean that more than $40K wasn’t spent in defending the suit.
Had it gone to court were I on the jury, if the law permitted it, I would have awarded damages TO ML.
GREAT NEWS!! ML and Blownmortgage are the two blogs I read everyday, and I love both of them.