A California-based man, Stewart Lucas Murrey, has filed a lawsuit against more than 50 women for $2.6 million alleging that they called him a ‘bad date’. Murrey alleges that the women shared negative stories about him on a viral Facebook page, “Are We Dating The Same Guy”. According to him, their reviews were false and defamatory.
However, the women sued by Lucas Murrey accused him of using legal action to intimidate them. They demanded that the courts should ‘slap him down’. As per a New York Post report, the women are invoking California laws meant to deter junk lawsuits, called anti-SLAPP laws. The acronym stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.”
Incidentally, on Monday (8th April), 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 with the popular online group, NYP reported.
The judge said that based on the evidence, the court did not see any possibility of Murrey prevailing against the defendants on any claim he made. According to a FOX 11 LA report, after finding no evidence of conspiracy, the judge granted an anti-SLAPP motion to prevent the abuse of the legal system to silence the women.
Kelly Gibbons is one of the women who received a lawsuit from Lucas Murrey. Gibbons said the first time she saw the man in real life was when he came to her house to drop off the lawsuit.
Speaking with the Times of London, she said, “My heart started pounding, as I thought: This man knows where I live. It was pretty eerie. He was filming with his cell phone, walking in. I don’t know who wouldn’t get creeped out by that.”
According to reports, Gibbons wrote the initial post about Murrey in the Los Angeles chapter of “Are We Dating The Same Guy?” after connecting with him on a dating app. They exchanged texts for a few weeks but Gibbons decided that she did not want to meet him in person. It is being said that the interaction went so badly that she wanted to warn other women about his rude behavior. She noted, “I wouldn’t want my friend going out with someone like that.”
Notably, the viral Facebook page, “Are We Dating The Same Guy” is a private page. It originated in New York City in 2022. It is part of a wider network of groups where women share experiences of their dating encounters in pages dedicated to their respective cities.
Currently, the Los Angeles chapter has approximately 53,000 members. When Gibbons made her post, the group consisted of only around 10,000 women. Nonetheless, several women rallied with Gibbons to share their negative experiences with Murrey. While some shared screenshots of conversations from dating apps and recounted their in-person encounters others chose to express their sentiments through comments.
Nine of the women who shared their experiences regarding Murrey are named in the lawsuit, while the others are collectively referred to as “Does 1-50.” The lawsuit alleges that these women, many of whom were unacquainted with each other, conspired to damage the plaintiff’s reputation and discriminated against him based on his inability to access the women-only Facebook page.
Meanwhile, the women whom Murrey has accused of ruining his dating life and damaging his reputation, are hoping that the recent court ruling will set a precedent and prevent him from further using the legal system against them.
However, Murrey is not the first man to have filed lawsuits against women who have shared their negative reviews on the page. Earlier in January, Nikko D’Ambrosio (32) filed a lawsuit against 27 women in Chicago after they described him in their posts as “very clingy” and a ghoster.
