{"id":2446891,"date":"2019-07-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=310262"},"modified":"2019-07-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T06:00:00","slug":"business-monday-alleged-online-troll-says-hes-broke-not-ready-to-mediate-with-aspen-pet-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/business-monday-alleged-online-troll-says-hes-broke-not-ready-to-mediate-with-aspen-pet-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Monday: Alleged online troll says he\u2019s broke, not ready to mediate with Aspen pet store"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Former C.B. Paws employee Ivan Lustig told a judge Friday he’s broke and wants to wait on mediating with his former employer C.B. Paws, which is suing him on allegations that he used phony online identifies to make false and disparaging remarks about the Aspen pet shop.<\/strong>
Jeremy Wallace\/ The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A man told a judge Friday he is broke but not ready to begin mediation with an Aspen pet shop that has civilly accused him of trolling the business online with anonymous comments that it claims damaged its reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am unemployed,\u201d defendant Ivan Lustig told Pitkin County District Judge Chris Seldin during a teleconference Friday. \u201cI do not have a vehicle. My sole source of income is Social Security, which is protected by federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lustig said that litigating Aspen law firm Garfield & Hecht PC \u201chas a duty\u201d to explain his financial state to C.B. Paws, which has accused Lustig of creating internet aliases to manufacture derogatory comments about the store on review sites hosted by Google and Yelp.<\/p>\n

For now, however, nothing has been proven against Lustig, C.B. Paws has not said how much it is seeking in damages, and neither side has begun to exchange information as part of the discovery process.<\/p>\n

As part of last week\u2019s case management conference, Seldin ordered that both sides complete their disclosure by the last week of August.<\/p>\n

The judge plainly explained the process to Lustig, who appeared at the hearing by phone and without an attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether they are emails, ledgers, any kind of documents \u2026 ask yourself if it is relevant to the case,\u201d Seldin said, adding that \u201cmight include information harmful to your case. You might not want to disclose it, but you\u2019re required to disclose it. That\u2019s how disclosures work.\u201d<\/p>\n

C.B. Paws, located in the Hyman Avenue pedestrian mall, sued \u201cJohn Doe\u201d in March 2018, with the goal to stop the comments from continuing. Apparently they have.<\/p>\n

The store also said in court pleadings that its reputation was damaged by the remarks, which were made in 2017.<\/p>\n

Garfield & Hecht later identified Doe as Lustig, a former C.B. Paws employee who was living in Aspen at the time. In January, it amended it complaint to identify Lustig as the defendant.<\/p>\n

Lustig alleged at last week\u2019s briefing Garfield & Hecht \u201chas attempted to paint me in a negative light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorneys with the firm, also appearing by telephone, didn\u2019t respond to that remark, but said they would prefer to mediate the dispute sooner than later. Lustig said he\u2019s not ready for that approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just like to have formal discovery conducted so I can see any claims made by the plaintiffs that just are not provable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s hearing marked Lustig\u2019s first appearance in person, though by telephone, on the matter; previous correspondence has been through court filings. He missed<\/a> the original case management conference scheduled in April.<\/p>\n

Lustig\u2019s alleged comments concerned C.B. Paws\u2019 return policy and prices. Using anonymous names, he allegedly commented abut the shop\u2019s \u201csmells of dog urine, feces and drool.\u201d In turn, C.B. Paws\u2019 reputation was tarnished, the suit claims.<\/p>\n

While Lustig has denied any responsibility for the comments, he also wrote in court pleadings that \u201cThis case is of importance, as it relates to the plaintiffs (word illegible) to suspend constitutionally protected speech based on flaws and evidence void of credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former C.B. Paws employee Ivan Lustig told a judge Friday he’s broke and wants to wait on mediating with his former employer C.B. Paws, which is suing him on allegations that he used phony online identifies to make false and disparaging remarks about the Aspen pet shop.Jeremy Wallace\/ The Aspen Times A man told a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-22 05:17:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}