Blogging malpractice defendant exposed : Case settled
A Perry Mason moment for the Internet, Jonathan Saltzman of the of Boston Globe reports.
As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.Was Lindeman Flea?
Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.
In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.
With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.
The next morning, on May 15, he agreed to pay what members of Boston's tight-knit legal community describe as a substantial settlement -- case closed.
Cool.
1) Any blog-reference to Perry Mason leads to 100 extra cool points in my book. Great pic of Raymond Burr, by the way.
2) By many accounts up here in New England, the pediatrician in this case ("Flea") is a really good and compassionate doc... who made the egregious error of assuming that you can blog on the internet and keep your identity secret. He also made the mistake of assuming the same moniker as the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but that is another issue entirely.
3) Just because you FEEL anonymous on the web, does not give you any insurance that you ARE, in fact, anonymous. This is the type of thing that could easily have been avoided if Flea had blogged more intelligently. (By which I mean the involvement of his blog in the case, not the malpractice suit itself).
Jerry