On the heels of winning a $330,000 decision in a highly publicized defamation suit against anti-spammer Mark Mumma, vacation marketer Omega Worldwide Travel’s lawyers said they are seriously considering suing the self-proclaimed tireless litigator again.
They claim Mumma’s behavior during the last two years has been just as defamatory as the actions for which they originally sued him.
“Based on his more recent activities, we are considering another lawsuit,” said James Hodges, principal of Hodges and Associates, the Virginia law firm representing Omega. “It’s under active consideration.”
And despite being on the losing end of three court decisions in relation to Omega, and being a reported $70,000 in debt, Mumma claims he’s got new ammunition and he’s ready to take the travel marketer on again.
“If they perceived the truth to be defamation before, why would they abandon that philosophy now?” Mumma said in an e-mail exchange with this newsletter. “If they thought I would not defend myself from their name-smearing campaign they’ve indulged in for the last three years, I guess they underestimated me.”
Since having a whopping $2.5 million judgment awarded against him in a defamation suit brought by Omega, Mumma has continued to wage his battle with the company in seemingly any forum he can access. He has continued to call the travel marketer a spammer as loudly and as publicly as he can. He’s also been soliciting donations to help pay his legal bills and continue fighting.
According an Oklahoma City television news story, Mumma is $70,000 in debt because of his legal bills.
“It’s my wife’s credit cards that I maxed out,” he said in the newscast. “It’s not really even my money that we’ve spent.”
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Alexandria division has since knocked the damages against Mumma down to $330,000.
Hodges said last week Omega would accept the judgment and added that whether or not the company sues Mumma again depends on what the anti-spammer does in the month-long window he has to decide whether or not to appeal.
Since the ruling against him, Mumma has also published a series of YouTube videos touting a documentary he claims to be making about his battle with Omega called Slappsuit. He’s also published comments on numerous blogs attempting to defend his behavior.
Moreover, he published a series of short videos on YouTube attempting to rebut a telephone interview with this newsletter and excuse the belligerent manner in which he conducted himself by claiming that he wasn’t aware he was being interviewed—even though he filmed himself making the call.
Most recently, Mumma sat for an interview with local television news producers for a segment about his battle with Omega that aired on June 25. The piece sympathetically portrayed Mumma’s battle with Omega as a David-vs.-Goliath story and broadcast a Web address for people to donate money to Mumma’s cause. The piece did not contain a single quote from anyone representing Omega. Hodges said he has contacted the station to try and get equal time.
Mumma has since posted the segment on YouTube and tacked on a plea for money.
“All Mark wanted was relief from the courts, now he faces losing his home and business,” said the plea. “Please help him pay his legal fees and help appeal this horrificly [sic] unjust jury verdict.”
However, Hodges said even the reduced amount the judge awarded Omega “indicates the level of maliciousness that she perceived. She recognized the malice with which he attacked us.”
Hodges said the lawsuit Omega won against Mumma covered activity before July of 2005. He added that Mumma has continued to defame Omega and, as a result, has two years of activity to answer for.
“We were limited in the previous lawsuit to proving damages through July 15, 2005 because that was the close of discovery,” said Hodges. “From July 15, 2005 on was not covered in that trial. We have another two years of continuing harm from his continuing defamatory conduct.”
And judging by Mumma’s e-mail response to a request for comment from this newsletter, he has no plans to tone down his behavior.
“They may not want to continue to screw with me … as I have discovered evidence in their own database, obtained through discovery, that proves they spammed a lot of people with HOTMAIL, MSN and AOL email addresses in the fall of 2004,” he wrote. “This is proof FROM THEM, BY THEM AND ABOUT THEM.”
Mumma added: “If they want to sue me for ‘quoting their own words’ and exposing their previous failed spamming attempts using evidence from their own master database, I say, go right ahead. This will be comical.”
In 2005, Mumma received six marketing e-mails from Omega’s online marketing arm Cruise.com, which he claimed were unsolicited. He threatened in a letter to sue Cruise.com’s parent, Omega, unless the company paid him $6,250.
When Omega refused, postings on one of Mumma’s anti-spam Web sites accused Omega, its Web site Cruise.com and its owners Daniel and Gloria Bohan of being spammers. The Web site also posted a photo of the Bohans that had apparently been copied from Cruise.com and described the couple as “Cruise.com spammers,” according to court records.
The Bohans turned around and sued Mumma in federal court for $3.8 million in damages, alleging defamation.
In response, Mumma countersued the Bohans under Oklahoma and federal anti-spam laws.
Last November, The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a district court ruling in favor of Omega. Though Mumma claimed Omega’s e-mail headers contained law-breaking inaccuracies, the court said the inaccuracies did not make Omega’s headers “materially false or materially misleading.”
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