A case is now percolating through the Illinois courts that may have implications on whether perpetrators of online deception can be sued for damages.
The case is Paula Bonhomme v. Janna St. James. Bonhomme lives in Los Angeles. She is a fan of the TV show Deadwood, and back in 2005, joined a chat room about the show. There she met St. James.
St. James eventually introduced Bonhomme, online, to a man by the name of Jesse. Bonhomme and Jesse exchanged emails, phone calls and handwritten notes, and their relationship blossomed into a romance. Jesse introduced Bonhomme to his family and friends via email. Bonhomme sent gifts to Jesse and his family. They planned a future together, and decided that Bonhomme should move from Los Angeles to Jesse’s home in Colorado.
Then suddenly, Jesse died of liver cancer. In Jesse’s memory, Bonhomme went to Colorado to visit some of his favorite places, accompanied by the woman who had introduced her to Jesse—Janna St. James.
But there was a problem: None of it was real.
Janna St. James made up the Jesse character, along with all 20 of his friends and family. She created an entire web of deceit, and snared Paula Bonhomme. She actually used voice-altering technology, so when they spoke on the phone, St. James sounded like a man.
Bonhomme spent money on gifts. She bought Jesse airline tickets and made changes to her home in preparation for his visits, which never materialized. In all, the charade cost Bonhomme about $10,000, including $5,000 for therapy after the emotional devastation of Jesse’s “death.”
Finally, Bonhomme’s friends, worried about the amount of time she was spending online, confronted St. James and exposed the fraud. They captured it on video, which is posted on YouTube.
Read ”˜Fake’ online love affair becomes legal battle on ABCNews.go.com.
Watch the YouTube video, St. James exposed.
Taking it to court
Bonhomme filed a complaint against Janna St. James in Illinois court in February 2008. The court dismissed her case. She filed a motion to reconsider in 2009, which was also dismissed. Then her attorneys filed an appeal.
Bonhomme’s complaint stated that St. James St. James committed fraudulent misrepresentation. The elements of this claim are:
- A false statement of material fact
- Knowledge or belief of the falsity by the party making it
- Intention to induce the plaintiff to act
- Action by the plaintiff in justifiable reliance on the truth of the statement
- Damage to the plaintiff resulting from that reliance
The problem with the original case apparently was that a claim of fraudulent misrepresentation was historically recognized only in business or financial transactions. The court had previously declined to consider fraudulent misrepresentation in noncommercial or nonfinancial dealings between parties.
Also, the defendant’s attorneys argued that St. James engaged in fiction, not a misrepresentation of facts, and that “the concepts of falsity and material fact do not apply in the context of fiction, because fiction does not purport to represent reality.”
The original trial court apparently bought that argument, but the appeals court did not. The appeals court ruled that the trial court erred in dismissing the case, and sent it back for further proceedings.
The actual court opinion is interesting and mostly easy to read. Check it out: Appellate Court of Illinois— Paula Bonhomme v. Janna St. James.
Blame the victim
The appellate court decision wasn’t, however, unanimous. One of the justices dissented, writing:
The reality of the Internet age is that an online individual may not always be—and indeed frequently is not—who or what he or she purports to be. The plaintiff’s reliance on the defendant’s alleged misrepresentations, in deciding to spend $10,000 on Christmas gifts for people who allegedly lived in another state and whom she had never met, was not justifiable. The plaintiff also cannot be said to have justifiably relied on the alleged misrepresentations in incurring expenses to move to another state to live with someone she had never met in person and who had cancelled a previous face-to-face meeting after she had purchased nonrefundable airline tickets.
In other words, the dissenting justice blamed the victim for being dumb enough to fall for the scam.
Kirk Sigmon, a blogger for the Cornell Law School, also thought the appellate court decision was a bad idea. He argued that “the world is full of misleading statements and ”˜puffery,’” and Bonhomme v. St. James could set a precedent that made Internet users responsible for telling the truth. This, Sigmon seemed to imply, was an imposition.
This holding has the potential to cause serious problems for Internet users. At least according to the Bonhomme court’s logic, many individuals may be liable for expenses incurred as a result of someone’s reliance upon their virtual representations. Mindless banter in chatrooms could now create legal liabilities. If courts apply a similar logic to negligent misrepresentation cases, even careless statements made on websites could give rise to litigation so long as plaintiffs can prove intent and harm. In theory, every user of the Internet is now subjected to an implied duty of truthfulness or due care in the representations they make when interacting with others online.
The blogger argued that allowing a complaint of fraudulent misrepresentation arising from personal dealings, rather than just commercial dealings, “threatens the very freedom that makes the Internet so attractive.”
Read The wild, wild web and alter egos, on CornellFedSoc.org.
Wrong but not illegal
I am troubled by the judge’s dissent, which blames the victim, and the Cornell blogger’s apparent opinion that the freedom of the Internet must include the freedom to lie, no matter how destructive it is to another individual.
The actions of Janna St. James were clearly reprehensible. They were morally wrong. This woman did not engage in “social puffery.” She set out to purposely deceive Paula Bonhomme, apparently just to amuse herself. Unfortunately, she succeeded, and Bonhomme was damaged.
Not only that, but St. James had a history of pulling this scam. Since this case became public, Bonhomme was contacted by at least five other women who were similarly victimized by St. James, in fake letters going back to the 1980s.
So why is it so difficult for Paula Bonhomme to get justice? I think the problem is the very structure of our legal system. Even when an action is clearly wrong, if it doesn’t violate a law, nothing can be done. The law hasn’t kept up with the technology, and the law, like most of society, doesn’t understand the maliciousness of sociopaths.
I hope Bonhomme makes out better in her next court go-round. In any event, I applaud her for even pursuing the case. If we want to make changes, and hold sociopaths accountable, we have to start somewhere.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
I think the word slimed is soooo appropriate. Its really gross. As I move further and further from my spath im finding more joy, and kindness, and hope. Its so true.
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Constantine,
You must keep in mind that these jobs are POLITICAL PLUMS that are awarded to people who have worked for the election campaign of the reigning governor of each state.
Just as judges are “elected” based on glad handing and not on any qualifications of their education etc. I just saw a car today with a SIGN ON THE DOOR “ELECT JOHN DOE for Judge” in my county.
Well, I KNOW this John Doe and he is a psychopath if there ever was one. In fact, this creep was my egg donor’s attorney who helped keep the psychopaths in my egg donor’s home and heart!
The previous judge who just resigned because he got involved in an affair and did some poor lawyering…wasn’t too bad a judge as far as I know. He always treated me fairly the several times I was before him in civil matters. He is also the one who raised my DIL’s bail to $150K after I told him what was going on. LOL Didn’t hurt he was my cousin! LOL This John Doe that is running though is a total psychopath, arsehole, hateful SOB, controlling, power hungrry, narcissistic, jack ass…let me see, did I miss anything? LOL
Of course JUDGES, psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers, preachers, military officers, parole boards, doctors, and lots of various professions should have Training in dealing with psychopaths, but remember how Bob Hare said he could tell the REAL psychopaths ? They were the ones who got him to “loan” them money. LOL So if he can’t spot them until after he has given them what they want, maybe no one can. LOL
Good point though.
Hope you had a good meal and a relaxing day today. I had a lovely day seeing folks I really like to sit around the camp fire and jaw with—we solve all the problems of the world.
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Constantine,
yes, the spaths have their hierarchies. Spath liked to use the really dumb spaths to do his bidding, but he also found a relatively intelligent meth addict and “mentored” him. The meth addict became a cop and 9 years later, married my sister as a trojan horse. Now, 12 years after that, the intelligent meth addict spath works for homeland security and has burned through most of my spath sister’s nest egg. My spath likes to be like the Tony Robbins of spaths. My spath-brother, OTOH, is looked down upon by both my spath and the trojan horse spath. They tried to have him sent to prison, but I saved him because I didn’t know anything about spaths back then.
I don’t think Cleckley knew about the intricacies of spath-dom. Or maybe he did but if he had tried to publish this stuff, he would have ended up in one of his own psych hospitals because nobody would believe it. Spaths behavior may not be insanity but I believe it’s the leading cause of insanity.
I agree with you about educating parole boards. Maybe once the public is better educated it will trickle down to them. On the other hand, you might get some people who think we should put spaths on the parole board because they are more likely to “see through” the spath convicts and not be fooled….
🙁
Oh, and I would also say that it’s not the parole board’s job to “spot” them, so much as to make a sound decision based on a skilled psychiatrist’s” PCL-R scoring. Obviously, even the psychiatrists will be fooled in many cases. But what I’m saying is that, at the very least, the KNOWN “30s” and above should almost never be let out before their official term expires.
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And the “Tony Robins of Spaths” is quite amusing, Sky! Speaking of which, that guy always gave me the creeps! – so maybe it’s possible he already was one himself?!
Yes, I can just see everyone ordering your ex’s “How to be a Truly Successful Sociopath”cassette tapes through the mail!
Constantine,
OMG, it has been crazy.
There was the T-giving he wanted to have with his friends, whom I had never met. We arrived and all these people were sitting around the TV watching porn… I asked to leave after 20 minutes.
Then there was the T-giving where I cooked all day just for me and him to have an organic, gluten free meal complete with pumpkin pie and he wouldn’t eat one bite. I now know it was poisoned.
There were the times I went to my parents home and both he and the trojan were there. They pretended not to know each other well and just get along like acquaintances. Trojan couldn’t keep that duper’s delight smile off his face. Spath mostly acted like a bumbling fool, my dad made him nervous, he could tell that my parents saw right through him. But I could not. Of course they could see through him, it takes one to know one.
The last xmas before the meltdown, Trojan’s parents came from out of state. His mom has terminal ovarian cancer. Spath drove like a maniac in the snow for 2 hours. my nerves were shot. Spath doesn’t have any nerves. When we got there, I went in to tell my mom we were going straight back home. Then I told spath to take us home. He did it on purpose. He was trying to make me act crazy in front of trojan’s mom or else he was trying to get me to do exactly what I did do – leave, so he wouldn’t have to face trojan’s mom. I think she knows something.