California man sues 50 women for $2.6 million after they call him ‘bad date’ on Facebook group

A man in California, United States is suing women and has filed more than 50 cases against them after they reportedly called him a bad date on a viral Facebook page called “Are We Dating The Same Guy.”

What we know about the case

Stewart Lucas Murrey from the city of Santa Monica said that he has filed the lawsuit seeking damages amounting to $2.6 million for defamation and sex-based discrimination as well as “emotional distress and pain and suffering”.

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The Facebook group Are We Dating The Same Guy? Los Angeles is a private group on Facebook and has nearly 54,000 members.

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On his GoFundMe page, Murrey has claimed that at least 238 Facebook accounts were involved in “harming” him for over a year.

“Some of their acts included posting my pictures without my permission, tracking my whereabouts, conspiring to harass me, fabricating entire stories, and sensationalizing their unremarkable interactions with me,” he wrote.

Murrey also claimed that he had never met some of these women and “ever really saw” their faces on TV as they were talking about him in a press release.

“I support a safe space for women to protect themselves against being stalked, harassed or harmed, and not the other way around. These women exploited the concept of a safe space to gossip, defame and cyberbully anyone at whim,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the women sued said Murrey was using legal action to intimidate them. One of the women, Kelly Gibbons, said that the first time she met him in real life was when he came to her house to drop off the lawsuit.

“My heart started pounding, as I thought, this man knows where I live,” Gibbons told the Times of London. She added, “It was pretty eerie. He was filming with his cellphone, walking in. I don’t know who wouldn’t get creeped out by that.”

Last month, some of the women who were sued by Murrey held a press conference and said they were “just speaking their truth and, unfortunately for him, it was not favourable.”

The women, who have also created a GoFundMe page, said that they are coming together to “share truthful accounts of our personal experiences” as well as “valid concerns pertaining to the plaintiff’s unsettling behaviour and background, all of which is public information.”

On their page, they also said that Murrey “poses a legitimate danger to the women of Los Angeles.”

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“Our negative interactions with him have spanned years. We plan to finally put an end to his harassing ways once and for all,” they added.

Los Angeles court throws out lawsuit

On Monday (Apr 8), a judge in the Los Angeles civil court ruled that one of the women, Vanessa Valdez, did nothing wrong by sharing her opinion of Murrey on the Facebook group.

(With inputs from agencies)