A 16-year-old boy was sued by five record companies accusing him of online music piracy. Robert Santangelo, who was as young as 11 when the alleged piracy occurred, denied ever disseminating music and said it's impossible to prove that he did. Santangelo's mother, 42-year-old suburban mother of five who was sued by the record companies in 2005, refused to settle, took her case public and became a heroine to supporters of Internet freedom.
The industry dropped its case against her in December but sued Robert and his sister Michelle, now 20, in federal court.
Michelle has been ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit.Apparently anyone can bring a frivilous lawsuit against another party, and if the other party does not respond (perhaps never even got the word that they were being sued - could have been on an extended trip, never read their mail, etc), that person can end up owing a big judgement by "default."
Imagine, someone sues a ham with a bogus claim that rf radiation from the radio was the cause of his prostate cancer. The ham simply doesn't take the claim seriously and ignores it, or happens to be out of the country for an extended period and cannot be reached. He is slapped with a judgement for $100,000 and foreclosure is ordered on his house.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8N01OKO0.htm
