Rall v. Hellman FAQs In August 1999 Ted Rall was forced to file a lawsuit against Danny Hellman, an obscure New York-based illustrator whose work has appeared in Screw and Brill's Content. Since then Mr. Hellman has launched, in the words of a New York State Appellate Justice hearing the case, "an unparalleled campaign of character assassination" and lies against him. In the interest of clarifying the events that led to the lawsuit and beyond, Ted is posting the following. What Did Hellman Do? In July 1999 I wrote a review that became a cover story for New York's alternative newsweekly, the Village Voice, about cartoonist/editor Art Spiegelman, who is best known as the author of the book "Maus." Danny Hellman, a person who I had never met but is evidently an avid fan of Mr. Spiegelman, immediately posted the entire copyrighted text of the article to a comics-related message board (the board's administrators removed it at my request) where he requested that correspondents physically assault me, vandalize my car, and suggesting that I would be murdered if I were to appear in public. A few days later he wrote an angry letter-to-the-editor of the Voice disagreeing with my opinions of Mr. Spiegelman's work, which the paper chose to publish. Naturally these actions--stalking, threatening, copyright violation--are all legally actionable. But these were not enough for Danny Hellman--remember, this is a guy I've never met!--who then decided to send out a massive e-mail spam to at least 30 (there may be more) editors and fellow cartoonists that purported to depict me bragging and gloating about the brilliance of my Village Voice piece. At first I didn't know who was attempting to destroy my career and reputation, but ultimately my attorney tracked the source of the (multiple) e-mail impersonations to Danny Hellman. After he ignored several series of cease-and-desist letters demanding that, among other things, he promise to leave me alone, I filed suit against him several weeks later. What Actions Were Taken Before the Filing? The following details the timeline of those two weeks in August. Judge for yourself whether you would have done anything differently. Ted Rall vs. Danny Hellman: Timeline Wednesday, August 4, 1999 Danny Hellman sends the TedRallsBalls prank e-mail to at least 30 comics professionals, critics, cartoonists and editors. I am traveling from New York to Los Angeles to attend pitch meetings scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Thursday, August 5 Checking my e-mail at my agent's office in Los Angeles, I find the TedRallsBalls e-mail listserv and a string of responding, angry e-mails from editors and cartoonists. I send an e-mail to the listserv advising the at least 30 people on it that they have been taken in by an impersonator. Although I don't learn this until many months later, it turns out that Danny has altered my post to make it look as if he is, in fact, the real me. I contact my attorney to try to discover the culprit and stop him/her from continuing the impersonation. My lawyer spends most of the day working on this, ultimately narrowing in on Danny Hellman. I send the following e-mail to Danny: quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Danny: After an afternoon of hellish e-mails caused by your insipid prank, my lawyer prevailed upon the website onelist.com to trace the origins of the fake "Ted Rall's Balls" mass e-mailing. You are this person. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate it if you would immediately send out an e-mail to everyone on your mailing list both accepting full responsibility for this crime and apologizing for the same; otherwise I shall pursue immediate legal remedies for fraud, misrepresentation, libel and slander regarding this matter. I shall expect this action to be taken by noon on Friday. Ted Rall ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, August 6 My lawyer drafts cease-and-desist letters to be sent to Danny. One is e-mailed to Danny, another is delivered by messenger to his Manhattan apartment and another is delivered by hand to the NY Press, Danny's principal client. Danny sends me the following e-mail: quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ted-- "insipid prank"? I thought it was one of my better ones. Tell you what I'll do, hot-pants: I'll forward this letter of yours to the list and send it out. That should remove any remaining doubts (as if there ever were any) as to whether you actually were the originator of the "Ted Rall's Balls" prank. ---hellman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Needless to say, I am unimpressed. "Hot-pants", indeed. Note: This is Danny's first post-prank communication; despite Danny's later claims, this is NOT an apology. Saturday, August 7 By Saturday, a number of people have unsubscribed from the TedRallsBalls listserv, including Nicholas Blechman of the New York Times. To this truncated group (but not to the original list), Danny sends the following e-mail: quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To Ted Rall, Ted Rall's Lawyers, the good men and women of the list formerly known as "Ted Rall's Balls@OneList.com", and anyone else whom it may concern: My name's Danny Hellman, and I created the Ted Rall's Balls list at OneList.com. To most of you this is old news; for those of you who may be under the impression that Ted Rall had ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with this list, let me assure you that this is not true. Ted Rall's Balls@OneList.com was a PRIVATE DISCUSSION GROUP; it was intended for the eyes of thirty individuals who I know personally, plus Rall himself. This list WAS NOT ACCESSIBLE to any unsuspecting websurfers, OR ANYONE ELSE NOT ALREADY ON THE LIST who might've happened upon it. The individuals on the list are well acquainted with my sense of humor, and would have known from the list's inception that it was a hoax, (as many of them told me). Rall's lawyer attempted to subcribe to the list; I denied his subscription attempt, as I would've denied any others, (had there been any). THIS LIST WAS NOT INTENDED FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC. I created this list to play a prank on Rall. The essence of the prank was this: to create the ILLUSION that untold numbers of publishing industry professionals were receiving messages from the list, and were not happy about it. The "replies" that you saw, seemingly coming from publishing industry professionals were FAKED. I WROTE THEM. Since the two clearly sarcastic parody messages sent out under his name were seen only by a private list of thirty people who I know personally, and the "replies" from industry professionals were faked, there has been no actual damage to Rall's professional reputation. This prank was intended as a practical joke. Given Rall's reputation as a "humor writer", I expected that he'd accept this prank in the spirit in which it was intended. Sadly, this was not the case. If Rall has failed to understand my sense of humor to the point where he thought it was necessary to begin legal action, then I am sorry The list will be shut down immediately. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This communication is where Danny's malice becomes fully apparent. First of all, it contains three lies: --The list was, in fact, publicly available on the Web, where people who were not subscribers read it. --Second, not all of the publishing professionals were faked, as he says--Blechman is very real, and I already know that. --Third, he told me the day before that he was going to forward my e-mail to the list. He did not. He also insults me by calling into question my sense of humor. Finally: This is not an apology, but rather a "sorry-if-you're-upset" statement. Sunday, August 8 Despite Danny's pledge, TedRallsBalls has NOT been taken down. Monday, August 9 This is the deadline of my first cease-and-desist letter from Friday, which contains four demands: --Promise to stop the impersonations --Provide a list of the original recipients of TRB --Publicly apologize to all of those recipients --Call my attorney to discuss a "potential monetary settlement" As of this day, Danny has not done any of these things. TRB is still up. He has not given me the list of recipients. He has not apologized to ALL of those recipients. He has not called my lawyer. In fact, as of now, in 2001, he has yet to comply with a single one of these demands. Tuesday, August 10 TRB has not yet been taken down. My lawyer contacts OneList.com and persuades them to take down the list. They also decide to ban Danny permanently from their service in light of this and previous offenses. My lawyer sends Danny a second cease-and-desist letter containing the previous demands, advising him that he has not complied with them, and adds the following demands: --That he never mention me in a public forum again --That he agree in writing not to encourage others to violate my person or property --That he pay me $20,000 to compensate me for the emotional distress and other damages he has caused me The deadline for this second cease-and-desist is the next day, "the close of business on August 11." Wednesday, August 11 Danny ignores my cease-and-desist. In the ensuing days, Danny will retain a lawyer, who promises to provide a complete list of recipients promptly. My lawyer advises his lawyer that we will file suit on Thursday, August 19, two weeks after the beginning of TRB, unless he enters into settlement discussions and complies with the non-monetary demands, including the apology. Danny refuses to do so. Meanwhile, he is furiously insulting me on the Comics Journal message board. Thursday, August 12 One week before filing. No word from Danny. Friday, August 13 Six days before filing. No word from Danny. Saturday, August 14 Five days before filing. No word from Danny. Sunday, August 15 Four days before filing. No word from Danny. Monday, August 16 Three days before filing. No word from Danny. Tuesday, August 17 Two days before filing. No word from Danny. Wednesday, August 18 The day before filing. I give the go-ahead for my lawyer to draft up the lawsuit, which costs me $5,300 in legal fees. Afterward, late that evening or the next morning (I don't remember which), Danny's lawyer makes an oral settlement offer of $1,000 along with an apology to be drafted by me and signed by him. Danny's lawyer tells my lawyer that the offer is firm and non-negotiable. I refuse to accept a $4,300 loss and turn down the offer. Thursday, August 19 I file my lawsuit against Danny in New York Supreme Court. Afterwards, at 12:08 PM, Danny sends me the following, which later becomes known as his "olive branch" e-mail: quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hey Ted----- Millionaire just told me that you'd mentioned to him you hadn't intended for this situation to reach the level it's currently at---and if this is the way you feel, then I couldn't agree with you more. I'd like to think that if you and I talked things out over the phone, we could come to some kind of mutually satisfactory conclusion to this situation. I think if we leave it to our lawyers, we're only going to end up bankrupting each other, and I can't imagine that you want that any more than I do. I'm truly sorry that you feel the way you do, and I never guessed you'd take it this seriously. When I've been pranked by others in the past, my response has always been a return prank; I assumed that the first letter I got from your lawyers was just such a return prank. I had no idea things would get THIS out of control as quickly as they have. You and I are working artists who have much better ways to spend our time then hiring lawyers to rip each other apart, yes? I'm sincerely willing to personally apologize to you over the phone, and to send a new apology to EVERYONE on that list, plus anyone ELSE you'd like me to send it to, if that's what's needed to straighten things out between us. I'm guessing that you've got better things to spend your money on than attorney's fees, right? That goes double for me. I'm extending you this olive branch in good faith, and I sincerely hope you'll accept it. I honestly want to do whatever it takes to fix this situation before it gets any worse, and I don't see why you and I couldn't do it on our own, without having to sic our lawyers on each other. I'm sure that your career is as important to you as mine is to me, and I'm afraid that if this case goes on any further, both our careers might suffer for it. I know the Comics Journal is planning to write this story up; if you like, I'll agree not to talk to them if you'll do the same. I'm sure we'd both be better off putting this nastiness behind us. I'd like to think that a year from now, we might run into each other at a party and laugh about this over drinks; who knows---if we actually knew each other, we might even get to understand each other's senses of humor. Everyone I've talked to agrees that this situation is starting to get WAY out of control....let's show them that we're both smart enough to stop this runaway train before it slams into a brick wall. I'm at 212-XXX-XXXX, and will be at home working all day Thursday the 19th and Friday the 20th; I also expect to be here during the day all weekend. I hope you'll call. sincerely danny hellman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The timing of this e-mail is suspect at best--if at had come even 48 hours earlier, I would have agreed to meet. And this private missive, simultaneous to his repeated onboard insults and invective, is obviously manipulative (note that is still contains no acknowledgement of wrongdoing, only a "sorry-if-you-feel-bad" statement). Still: I am torn. I would prefer to settle this amicably. But now we're litigants in a lawsuit. Lawyers have been retained. I can't meet with him, and I can't trust him given all the times he's lied. But I do respond politely, stating that I appreciate his sentiment and hope that he'll agree to meet with me, with our lawyers, to talk settlement. I never hear from Danny Hellman again. Have There Been Settlement Discussions? Yes. Hellman's current offer is $500 donated to a charity of my choice. He still refuses to turn over a complete list of the people to whom he sent his "prank." He has offered to sign a private, sealed apology letter to be written by me but never to be released to the public. I have spent, to date, more than $50,000 in legal fees. Will There Be A Trial? Probably. Given that Hellman could have settled this issue amicably for little or no cash in 1999, it stands to reason that he's enjoying the publicity too much to let this go. We currently expect a trial date sometime this fall, though that could change. Won't You Have To Prove Actual Damages to Win? No. Under New York State case law, people who make their livings in the world of letters enjoy special protection against impersonation. In New York, impersonation of such a person is automatically libel per se, and is considered an act so outside the bounds of civilized behavior that it entitles a plaintiff to receive automatic damages. I am also suing Hellman for libel, a charge which requires that I prove actual damages in order to collect. Why Don't You Drop the Case? As you might expect, filing a lawsuit is an extremely expensive, time-consuming and emotionally-trying process that takes years to resolve. Fortunately this is an easy decision for me; if I had failed to defend my good name using the courts I would have opened myself to relentless attacks by Hellman and others like him. It would become open season not only on me, but also on other cartoonists and writers with whom someone might disagree. In the unlikely event that Hellman prevails, artists would lose their libel per se protection against impersonation.