Middle Schooler’s Book Inspires Lawsuit

Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer has broken a story about Highland Park Middle School. In a nutshell: One HPMS student wrote a novel that features characters named after his peers; one of those peers’ mothers has filed a lawsuit agains the novelist’s parents.

By Dan Koller Sep. 16, 2011 | 12:33 pm | 14 Comments | Comments RSS
14 comments to "Middle Schooler's Book Inspires Lawsuit"
  1. anon @ September 16, 2011 at 12:37 pm
    It’s absolutely obvious who the mom is. “MP” ring a bell? I’m sorry she has to go through this. Awful!

  2. DemBones @ September 16, 2011 at 2:23 pm
    OMG.

  3. XT @ September 16, 2011 at 3:15 pm
    Wow. I don’t usually believe in these types of lawsuits, and not sure I do here either, but if I was that girls parents, I’d certainly do something. Crazy.

  4. Charles @ September 17, 2011 at 9:08 am
    I don’t think the mother had much choice but to file this lawsuit. With the right to free speech comes responsibility.

  5. ld @ September 17, 2011 at 11:53 am
    Very unfortunately, now more people will read the book.

  6. Interested Observer @ September 17, 2011 at 5:19 pm
    Isn’t slander and defamation saying something is true that is not true? If the child said the book is fiction, how can that be defamation? Or, let’s say it is about wrongfully appropriating a person’s name and likeness without that person’s permission. Didn’t the papers say he asked if he could use her name, and didn’t they say he told her the character with her name would be a victim of date rape? Wasn’t that consent to use her name and likeness? Where is the damage? This seems like a stretch to me.

  7. Logan Soileau @ September 18, 2011 at 2:58 pm
    It says in the filing that the girl consented but couldn not have understood what all the bad things that happened in the book actually meant. I’m not sure about that…i mean, the boy who wrote the book is the same age as the girl…he knows what date rape and drugs are, but she doesn’t?

  8. DemBones @ September 18, 2011 at 7:36 pm
    @Interested. “For fiction, the question is whether readers can identify a real person from your description.” Or so says Flatiron writers Blog. I’m sure consent will be a factual issue to be determined at trial.

  9. HPHS Mom @ September 19, 2011 at 8:06 am
    13 year old children say “Oh, ok,” to just about anything.

    Not an attorney but I doubt minors can ‘consent’ to anything. I must sign for my son’s photos to be used, etc.

    If the teacher agreed for his/her name to be used in the book, it’s highly unlikely that he/she agreed for this namesake character to be portrayed as a pedophile.

  10. HPMS STUDENT @ September 19, 2011 at 10:22 pm
    Actually it was a boy. I’m not going to mention his name. I don’t know why he would do this, and whatever the reason was, he still shouldn’t have done it. I think his parents got rid of his Facebook and punished him with other things.

  11. Avid Reader @ September 21, 2011 at 4:04 pm
    Updates?

  12. Watching from the sidelines @ September 24, 2011 at 6:44 pm
    Wow.

  13. Avid Reader @ September 29, 2011 at 8:57 am
    No updates? How is the lawsuit progressing? Have their been any further school comments?

  14. Really? @ November 10, 2011 at 11:37 am
    This boy needs to be kicked right out of the neighborhood and his parents must accompany him to some trashy little town to live out the rest of his days in isolation. The parents are repulsive to have let their 14 yo boy do something so hurtful to his classmates. He ruined his life or did his parents? Nasty.

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