Hall of Fame hockey referee Andy van Hellemond has serviced notice to the creator so of Adam@Home and numerous newspapers that ran the May 28th strip on the grounds of defamation. In the strip Adam and his son are sitting on the couch and the son asks if someday he too could be a hockey referee to which Adam says, “If Van Hellemond can do it, anyone can” and goes on to describe the ref as “the worst and evil ref ever.”
An attorney for the retired referee told the Toronto Star, who was also served papers, that the statement’the worst and most evil,’ is a libellous statement and has caused “serious and irreparable harm.”
The Star notes that in their opinion, the cartoon in question is a cheap shot, but well within the lines of fair comment.
More information on The Star’s site.
Van Hellemond calls misconduct on cartoonist
Comic strip was offside
UPDATED: I’ve heard back from Rob Harrell who confirmed that he had been served papers, but has been advised to not comment pending the litigation.
I’m guessing Universal Uclick has also been served because the strip doesn’t seen to be available anymore on Gocomics.com.
Who knew that hockey refs could be so evil 🙂
Wow…., if cartoonist would get sued for each Editorial strips they could do…
This strip would be far more entertaining if Adam was unemployed… or his life was a mess. Anything that would give him some character… Too often people draw uninteresting characters and have em sit in front of the TV or talk about other stuff.. stuff more interesting then the comic strip itself, but completely unrelated. As a result they end up talking about famous people (whose lives are more interesting then any character they have in their strip) and and wallah! You’re getting sued. Not that I think Rob should get sued.. many more people will learn of this Reff’s bad call now that he’s made a sink over this then if he’d said nothing at all.
free speech in action….