Last week, medical supplier Med Express filed a lawsuit against an eBay buyer who dared to give the company negative feedback. By Tuesday, the lawsuit had been covered by Ars and other sites. Yesterday, the story was featured in a British tabloid and then on MSN. Without a doubt, Med Express experienced a deluge of complaints.

The publicity also landed the defendant, Amy Nicholls, the pro bono lawyers she had been seeking through Public Citizen. The lawyers filed a counterclaim for her in court.

Last night, Med Express founder Richard Radey apologized. He said the lawsuit was a mistake and he intends to drop it. Radey told his attorney to only ask for $1 in damages, he wrote. "Her feedback was also never an issue," continued Radey. "We fully support her right and all of our customers right to leave any feedback they desire—true or otherwise!" He concluded:

The only person to blame here is me. You have spoken and I have listened. A terrible wrong needs to be righted. I am instructing our attorneys to drop the lawsuit. I want to assure everyone that you may feel free to leave any feedback on our company without fear of reprisal. I have learned my lesson.

Radey explained that his company could be charged "tens of thousands" in additional fees if he didn't get the rating changed. That assertion has been challenged by some other eBay sellers.

What Radey didn't mention in his apology is that he sues people over negative ratings routinely. The same day he sued Nicholls, who lives in South Carolina, Radey also sued a resident of Pennsylvania and a resident of Guam—both for publishing truthful feedback statements on eBay, according to Nicholls' counterclaim.

Apology not accepted

This morning, Public Citizen's Paul Levy responded to Radey's apology. Normally, when a target of criticism apologizes so profusely, "it is also my practice to be gracious," wrote Levy. "Problem is, I don’t believe a word of what he says."

Once he had an opportunity to check out Radey's history of litigating over eBay ratings, he found a troubling pattern. "Med Express typically files a complaint based on extremely vague assertions of falsity, against defendants who may be too far from Medina to respond effectively, seeks a temporary restraining order without giving any notice, and hopes to get relief before the defendant knows what hit him, her, or it," wrote Levy.

Radey's "blame my lawyer" strategy doesn't really work, since he's filed these types of suits using multiple attorneys. In addition, Radey has personally signed affidavits saying he had read the lawsuit and complained specifically about the contents of the feedback.

Levy singled out another suit filed by Radey as being "even worse" than the suit against Nicholls. Last week, Pennsylvania resident Dennis Rogan was sued over a two-word neutral feedback reading "Order retracted." Just as in the Nicholls situation, the feedback is truthful. Med Express sold an item to Rogan and then didn't send it because Med Express itself broke the item before shipping it out.

So Rogan left a "neutral" feedback stating that the transaction wasn't completed—and got sued.

While Levy doesn't accept Radey's attempt to throw his lawyer "under the bus," he notes that lawyer (James Amodio) is hardly blameless. "He filed a frivolous lawsuit and an even more frivolous TRO motion; he maintained it hoping that the expense and inconvenience of defending far from home would bludgeon Nicholls into submission... and, quite possibly, he failed to give his client sound advice about the law or about the practical consequences of bringing such a proceeding," wrote Levy. "We may get the opportunity to find out what really happened because the counterclaim served yesterday seeks attorney fees and damages as well as Rule 11 sanctions from both Amodio and Radey, thus giving each of them every incentive to testify against each other."