Harlan & Cimoszewicz v. Wprost

From this position, I assume that this Defendant never showed up in court in order to fight the law suit. However, here is an account from the Polish press which claims that Wprost has been served.

 

One of the other Defendants (Lowell International Co.), a company which distributes Wprost in the U.S., did contest the Complaint in its Answer. The majority of this brief consists of one sentence — repeated 29 times: The Defendant neither admits nor denies, but has insufficient knowledge about the allegations in paragraph x and demands strict proof thereof (with x designating the number of the respective paragraph of the Complaint).

 

Lowell moved for summary judgment arguing that as a matter of law, Lowell being a distributor of Wprost, would be liable for defamation only had it known or had reason to know of the defamatory nature of the articles. According to Lowell the record shows clearly otherwise.

 

The Plaintiffs met the motion with a Memorandum in Opposition in which they pointed out how in their opinion Lowell knew or had reason to know about the defamatory nature of the articles. In addition they argued that this knowledge is a question of fact that is to be decided by the jury (thus summary judgement should not be available).

 

Lowell offered a rebuttal (Reply) in which it questioned the account given by Plaintiffs. I don’t know how this exchange ended, since I don’t have all the documents. The only fact that I can make interference from is that Lowell does not show up in the Verdict.

 

In the Verdict, the Jury awarded Plaintiff Russell J. Harlan $250,000 of actual damages from Defendants: Wprost, Agencja Wydawniczo-Reklamowa “Wprost”, Marek Krol, Maciej Rybinski. The actual damages for Malgorzata Harlan-Cimoszewicz a/k/a Natasha Harlan against the same Defendants are $750,000. The Jury further awards $4,000,000 in punitive damages to both Plaintiffs from the same Defendants.

 

Should the Plaintiffs proceed with the enforcement of the verdict in Poland, at least two interesting questions might arise.

 

1. Enforcement of a foreign (and non-EU) judgment which was handed down in absence of the defendant. This can raise the question of the right to defense. Both the Constitution and Code of Civil Procedure would not allow for an enforcement of the judgement in which the defendant was deprived of the right to defense.

 

First, even if Wprost were aware of the proceedings, are there jurisdictions geographically and culturally so distant from Poland that defending a law suit there would be so hard and expensive for a Polish citizen that the defendant is deprived of the right to defense?