Jeff Parish - Theriot drops lawsuit

Jefferson Parish's Interim Prez, Steve Theriot, has dropped his defamation lawsuit against NOLA.com commenters:

Jefferson Parish President Steve Theriot dropped a parish lawsuit Monday that sought the identities behind 11 anonymous user names on www.NOLA.com who made critical comments online about his administration and former parish officials, court records show.

And here's the real story, a few paragraphs down:

Had the parish pursued the legal action, it likely would have turned into an uphill battle. James O'Byrne, director of content for NOLA.com, has said the website would not release any information regarding the accounts of private users. NOLA.com is the web site affiliated with The Times-Picayune. Neither the website nor the newspaper were defendants in the case.

Da Paper and its online affiliate, NOLA.com, weren't going quietly into the good night on this. SLAPP lawsuits rarely succeed because the press fights them tooth and nail. In this case, Phelps Dunbar legal time at $225/hour was going to run up pretty quickly on the Parish's dime.

And that's really the bottom line, Theriot ostensibly wanted to punish those making comments that hurt his feelings, but the money was being spent by the parish and Da Paper.

I really, really, really wish someone would ask Theriot what he's got against Da Paper and NOLA.com that he was going to make them run up legal bills.