California English Teacher Sues Bic over Anonymous Abuse

OAKLAND, CA—Only days after a California lawyer sued Yahoo over personal attacks made against him on Yahoo’s message boards, a California high school teacher has filed a potential class action lawsuit against the French writing instrument giant Bic.

Sarah Bolton, 63, said she was subject to a "barrage of harassing, defamatory and abusive messages and letters" from anonymous students who allegedly used a variety of Bic-brand writing instruments to pen their statements.
Bolton, who wants others who have received letters possibly written using Bic products to join in the suit, accused Bic of sheltering users who harass people through the written word.

The French-based company declined to comment on the lawsuit, but a spokesperson for Bic said: "Les produits Bic sont connus et appréciés dans le monde entier pour leur qualité, leur prix raisonnable et leur simplicité."

When Bic refused to reveal the details of its pen users in the Oakland area high school who allegedly harassed Bolton, she sued the company for the information in April.

“Most companies, if they are compelled by law to hand over information, will do so,” George Gribble, Bolton’s lawyer said. “But Bic is making this difficult.”

Ms. Bolton, a high school English teacher, began receiving maliciously penned notes and letters in a comment box used to enable students to ask anonymous questions about literary works. The derogatory comments came flooding in, Bolton says, when last spring she came to the defense of author Jane Austin’s work Mansfield Park by placing a note on the box concerning the “living nature of the written word.” The anonymous comments, however, were not only about the novel in question but also about Bolton’s breath, weight, swollen ankles, armpit hair, acne scars, 37 cats, and her habit of talking to herself between classes when no one is present.

An English teacher for 40 years, Bolton said she is familiar enough with writing instruments to recognize that many of the harassing letters were written with the popular Bic Rondo Ballpoint pen and the Bic Round Stic Grip. “And thankfully, someone used a Bic Velleda Grip dry-wipe marker when defacing the comment box itself, so I was able to just wipe that off with a tissue,” Bolton said.

She sought the names, addresses, and phone numbers of her critics from Bic, but she said it provided only information about the new Bic Z24 Bold Liquid Ink felt-tip pen, and an offer to sell Bolton a box of a 100 for substantial savings off the retail price since she was a state-employed teacher.

Bolton is now urging other teachers who have been the target of such attacks and who have been unable to discover who penned the letters to join her in the class action lawsuit. One of the consequences of the publicity Bolton has received over the lawsuit has been to have her house egged and toilet papered. She claimed that, most likely, the person who applied Crisco to her windshield wipers was also behind the vandalizing of her home.

Other teachers in the Oakland high school are not as inspired to join the fight. “It’s a comment box—since when is a comment box held to the same scrutiny as a journalistic publication,” asked one teacher who wanted to remain anonymous. “It’s a place where ignoramuses rant, and she [Bolton] shouldn’t attach so much weight to what small-minded individuals write. If they were attacking her anonymously through the Oakland Tribune or The New Yorker, that would be different. And don’t even get me started about the pens—maybe she should have sued herself for putting the box up in the first place.”