Tag: James Stanton

IPE Update: Digital Homicide Needs A Lawyer


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(Update: This detail was pointed out by a reader. The document has been stamped as “not in proper form” and “subject to rejection by the court.)

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Small IPE update this week. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but Digital Homicide is in severe need of a lawyer. Today’s update is just two pages consisting of two very short paragraphs, expanding upon the previous set of updates.

The document itself is a request for the court to accept the motion in response to Stanton’s motion to dismiss the case. Translated to English, the request says “please accept that last set of documents I submitted.” Romine has no idea if the document is required, but he filed it anyway and apologizes if it is a waste of the court’s time.

This is only submitted as the term “Opposition” was not specifically stated in those two documents. The Plaintiff was unaware if this was a required statement and felt it may need to be stated officially. Apologies if this is obvious and unnecessary.

The presence of a lawyer could have saved this lawsuit from several follies, such as the existence of this document or that “aforementioned” is one word and not two.

The Plaintiff files this Affidavit in Opposition with these two afore mentioned documents as Opposition and the undersigned requests the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss be denied.

For those of you keeping score on the motion/response score count, we are now in Digital Homicide’s motion in response to the defendant’s motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s opposition in response to the defendant’s motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s case.

It makes sense in legal circles, not much elsewhere.

IPE Update: Judge Strikes Down Digital Homicide


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It’s been quite a while since the last In Plain English update on the Digital Homicide lawsuit, but earlier this week two new documents were presented to the court system that, as some of you have pointed out, I’ve ignored. I posted a short bit on Twitter essentially saying that nothing new was really presented, but for the sake of documentation, it’s best to just go over recent developments in a little more detail. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume you’re up to date on the case. If not, check out our previous coverage.

There are a few things at issue here. James Stanton has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds of jurisdiction, among other complaints, to which James Romine filed a response and a motion to amend as well as a motion to exceed the page limit. The court accepted the first motion to amend and motion to exceed the page limit.

However, Romine filed a motion to amend his response and Stanton objected on the grounds that the amendment didn’t do anything but repeat previous arguments. The court has upheld the defense, and denied the second motion to amend the response.

As a result, the court has approved a motion for leave to the plaintiff to amend his response to the defense’s motion to dismiss the case. In layman’s terms, Romine has more time to respond to Stanton’s attempt to have the case dismissed.

The second document is a 28 page rebuttal of Stanton’s defenses. It reiterates a lot of what Romine has said already, that Stanton does business in Arizona because people in the state can subscribe to his Patreon and buy items. He states that he can sue Stanton as an individual because the defense used his name specifically in coverage (calling him Romino).

Romine was also CISSP certified until 2014, and his sales have been destroyed by Stanton’s followers. I’m not sure what those two have to do with each other, but they’re noted in the same paragraph.

Our take: Once again, it’s interesting to see Digital Homicide, a company with seemingly little self-awareness of their public perception, using the Ventura v Kyle case in their list of precedent. If you’re not aware, Jesse Ventura sued former Navy Seal Chris Kyle over Kyle’s statement that he punched Ventura in the face at a bar after Ventura allegedly stated that the Seals could “lose a few” in reference to Kyle’s deceased fellow soldiers. When Kyle was murdered in 2013 at a shooting range in Texas, Ventura instead pursued damages against Kyle’s estate. He came out with $1.8 million, which he has since been accused of lying to the court and claiming said money would be paid by the book publisher’s insurance in order to ensure a verdict in his favor.

(Addendum: The verdict in Ventura’s favor has been thrown out and the case is set to go to retrial. This was accidentally deleted along with another comment.)

Romine is still representing himself as of this publishing and his Gofundme for a lawyer presently sits at $425.

IPE Update: Run Over By An Internet Semi Update


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Small In Plain English update for the James Romine V James Stanton case (Digital Homicide V Jim Sterling). Following the recent motion to dismiss the case, James Romine has filed his own motion to dismiss the dismissal. To put it bluntly, and to utilize a logical argument that will make much more sense in the next paragraph or two, the case has jumped on the crazy train and left logic bleeding on the highway of justice about two hundred miles back.

First case of interest, in order to prove that Jim Sterling does business in Arizona, James Romine actually purchased a t-shirt from the Jimquisition website and had it shipped to his address. The newly introduced evidence includes a receipt and a photo of the “Jim Fucking Sterling Son” t-shirt ordered from the website. Romine takes a moment of the court’s time to note that his brother coined that term. Romine also notes that he has been subscribed to Sterling’s Patreon for three months now.

In what appears to be a case of lacking awareness, Romine is now invoking the case of Ventura V Kyle as precedent for defamation in cases where the defendant was not in the same state as the trial. Ventura V Kyle is described as “a case with no winners,” where Jesse Ventura sued Navy Seal Chris Kyle after the latter claimed to have punched Ventura in a bar. Ventura’s reputation was severely damaged after he continued the lawsuit against Kyle’s estate after Chris Kyle was fatally shot at a gun range in Texas in 2013, the events adapted into the film American Sniper.

Don’t worry, it gets stranger. Romine goes on to compare the case as being “precisely the same” as being run over by a series of cars. I’m going to attach the full paragraph because paraphrasing wouldn’t do the full quote justice.

“It is precisely the same as being hit with a car in Arizona by an out of state resident passing through. In this case, The Defendant’s ‘car’ is actually an Internet semi with a camera attached to display the show of The Plaintiff being run over to The Defendant’s subscribers and then is followed by a thousand more cars following The Defendant’s lead.”

To sum where the case is up to this point: James Romine filed a motion to amend his complaint, which Sterling responded to with a motion to dismiss said amendment as pointless because the defense believes it can have the case thrown out before it goes to court primarily on the grounds of lacking jurisdiction and that his comments were a matter of opinion. Romine filed to have the dismissal dismissed, making claims that Arizona’s district court does indeed have the jurisdiction and that Sterling’s comments are a matter of fact.

Get it? Got it? Good. More on the story as it develops.

IPE Update: Motion To Dismiss Digital Homicide Lawsuit Presented


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Romine V Stanton refers to the ongoing lawsuit between James Romine (Digital Homicide) and James Stanton (Jim Sterling) over alleged defamation by the latter causing damage to the reputation and sales of the former. Last we heard, James Romine had filed a motion to amend his complaint and is now suing for over $15 million in damages, including $5 million in emotional distress. The defense, on April 5th, filed a motion to delay their response which was granted with the new deadline being May 5th.

Well the deadline is here and the response was filed yesterday, finally giving us a response from Stanton and his lawyers, of which he has two. James Romine is still being represented by himself, owing to the fact that he can’t get a lawyer to take his case. The brunt of the 31 page response aims to persuade the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that Arizona does not have jurisdiction over the case, seeing as Stanton has no presence in the state, makes no sales in the state, nor is he aware if anyone does or does not watch his videos from Arizona. Humorously, he also notes that he has never even visited the state.

Stanton’s response is a motion to dismiss the case, defending his writing/videos as protected speech and that commentary on DHS is clearly opinion. I’ll let Stanton sum it up:

 I am appalled that my opinions and writings on the subject of DHS, its games, and its use of an alias on the Steam service to distribute its games can serve as a basis for a libel lawsuit. As a writer and entertainer, I am well within my legal right to express my opinions, disclose my discoveries, and be part of online commentary regarding video game companies like DHS and video game distribution services like Steam. The Article is clearly protected speech and use of words like “chicanery,” “the Wet Bandits,” “weirdness” and “weeeeird” to describe DHS is clearly opinion.

MMO Fallout will have an update hopefully early next week on how Judge Tuchi rules.

IPE Update: Judge Strikes Digital Homicide Complaint


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Small In Plain English update on the Digital Homicide v James Stanton (Jim Sterling) lawsuit that took place over the past week. On April 13th, James Romine filed a 77 page amended complaint against Stanton. If you don’t have a drink and perhaps a snack, don’t bother getting up to get one. This is simply an alteration of the previously submitted lawsuit and doesn’t contain much new information other than an increased demand for damages. Romine is now suing for $15 million in total, including $4 million in product damages, $5 million in emotional distress, and $6 million in punitive damages.

As we’ve reported in our previous coverage, plaintiff James Romine (Digital Homicide) is not represented by a lawyer, which might have come in handy since Arizona court requires you to file a motion to amend. Romaine did not do so, and as such the judge has struck down the amended complaint. As part of the ruling, Judge Tuchi also gave James Romine until the 27th in order to file a motion to amend.

As always, MMO Fallout will update you will continued coverage as it appears.

(Source: Arizona court dockets)