Thread by @AlexandraErin

Okay, IANAL (and also, I'm not a lawyer) but I see a lot of people in comments reacting to the filing's description of allegations as "facts" and "factual" as though they constitute an admission that the allegations are true, and I'm afraid this is overly optimistic.

https://twitter.com/Pullingaclaudia/status/1421027322870837248

"I'm just sharing my opinion on your character" is a pretty good defense against defamation in the land of the free and the home of the et cetera. Free speech is protected after all, and everyone's entitled to their opinion.

So if you're saying, "Just my opinion, but I think he's a scumbag in my opinion because he spiked my drink and tried to take me home, and that's my opinion" and the scumbag's lawyer says you're making factual statements, they mean "statements as to what the facts are".

Meaning, you can call him a scumbag and that is well and truly your opinion, but as soon as you explain that it's because he spiked your drink you have made a claim about what the facts of the matter are, and that's less categorically protected.

To make it clear - I'm not disputing that it happened and I'm not talking about statements by Chris or his lawyers that agree specific incidents happened. I'm referring to people posting screen shots of "she said this as a statement of fact, not opinion", read as an admission.

I man, multiple of the statements singled out as "factual, not opinion" also have notations that he has what he considers to be evidence the speaker is lying, so they're definitely not conceding that these factual statements are tru.

And I'm not going to spend all day on this, as I have a strict rule about not doing PR for horrible people for free. I'm not Crisp Abalone's lawyer's communications team! I think this is a case where the plain-language meaning is leading us astray from the legal use of words.

Muting this thread. I'm not arguing the facts of the case, Abalone's overall chances or the wisdom of his legal strategy, or anything else. I'm talking specifically about what it means when a legal filing says someone made a statement of fact. That's it. Nothing else.