In light of recent threats that have been made lately about another so-called history making lawsuit allegedly by Ronald Federici (although thus far no parties have been served and the alleged documents have been posted by an anonymous individual on an anonymous WordPress blog) against Advocates for Children in Therapy, their officers and an advisory board member, I thought it would be useful and instructive to review another lawsuit that revolved around the issue of internet free speech, namely the right to post criticism on a website, The Gentle Wind Project (GWP) v. Bergin and Garvey. This case was dismissed. GWP lost. While I realize that this case is not identical, of course, it is nevertheless instructive. One big difference is that the GWP people are not licensed mental health professionals so they cannot be held to the same standards of accountability, but still, they not only lost. They ended up in big trouble with the State of Maine.

Details of this lawsuit can be found on Bergin and Garvey’s website http://www.windofchanges.org/ which is the website that was at the center of this lawsuit. GWP also sued Rick Ross and Steven Hassan for putting links on their websites and GWP. The case against Rick Ross was dismissed and Hassan settled out of court by agreeing to remove the links on is website in exchange for them removing derogatory material about him, so Steve Hassan’s willingness to settle is the one way in which they did succeed in silencing him, but it really is a moot point because all the other parties are free to criticize GWP, including the main parties, Bergin and Garvey.  The website remains up, complete with all of their original criticism of GWP, plus details about this fascinating and history making case. The ruling stated that Bergin and Garvey are allowed to keep the website up and the settlement states that they cannot be sued again by GWP.  Click here to read a summary. A more detailed summary is available at the website of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a center I highly recommend for anyone hit with an unjust lawsuit. The people there are very helpful.

But wait, there’s more. Not only did GWP lose, but because of the information that came out during the course of the case, the State of Maine filed criminal charges against GWP for fraud. The result was that GWP was dissolved [“defendants” here refers to GWP]:

The defendants agreed to pay civil penalties and court costs. They also agreed to an injunction that prohibits them from making certain health and research claims about the “healing instruments” or from serving as fiduciaries or advisors for any other Maine nonprofit organization. The parties have also agreed that GWP will be dissolved, and its remaining assets distributed by the Attorney General as restitution to consumers who purchased a “healing instrument” since 2003 and to a Maine charity whose charitable mission is to provide services to those with mental health disabilities.

This case was a major victory for the freedom of people to criticize others on the internet. According to the current Winds of Change website, lies are continuing to be spread about Bergin and Garvey, such as the lie that Bergin is in prison when of course he is not and thanks to the favorable court decision, Bergin and Garvey remain free to post about all of this on their website. Justice has been served.