Address the following situations using IRAC methodology. You should do a thorough analysis, however, you do not need to determine who prevails in the suit. Provide your responses following each case summary.

Question #2

Jeffrey Farmer owned a printing business. He sold the business but the buyer did not pay Farmer the purchase price as promised. Thus, Farmer filed a suit against the buyer to recover proceeds from the sale of his printing business. In July 2007, the court hearing the suit appointed Nicholas Vanburen to serve as receiver, authorizing him to take possession of and sell the non-exempt assets of the defendants to the suit. This means that Vanburen was to sell the assets of the printing business and use the proceeds to pay Farmer the amount he was owed. Any remaining proceeds would be returned to the present owner of the business i.e., the person who purchased the business from Farmer.

Five months later, in December 2007, Vanburen asked the court if it could withdraw as receiver. In February 2008, the trial court entered an order discharging Vanburen as receiver.

On June 23, 2008, roughly four months after Vanburen's discharge as receiver, Farmer published a review of Vanburen on the Ripoff Report website. The review was entitled, "Report: The Vanburen Firm: Nicholas Vanburen" and subtitled "Don't let this firm be a receiver for your property--More interested in depleting your assets for his own financial gain." The review, posted under Farmer's first name, "Jeffrey," read:

This attorney was assigned to be a receiver for some assets that I needed to recover. He totally screwed up the whole deal. He allowed the defendants in the case to steal money and property. He lied on court documents as far as time he spent on the case. He falsified and mislead [sic] the court with financial statements and other information to the court. He made deflamatory [sic] remarks before the court about me--which were blatent [sic] lies.

He threatened me with extortion to get almost $ 20,000 from me when the court orders state that the receivers [sic] fees are a taxation against the defendants, not the plaintiff. He would not liquidate my property to me, unless I paid him money--a direct contriction [sic] to the court order.

He is now trying to extort more money from me or he will use his legal power to cause me more fiancial [sic] harm. This is a bad attorney in its worst form. He personally has cause [sic] me almost $ 500,000 in damages.

Farmer signed the review, "Victim of Extortion and Fraud, Austin, Texas, U.S.A."

Vanburen discovered the review roughly one month after its posting. He found the review after querying his name in the search-engine Google, after which Farmer's review came up as one of the first results. After being informed that Vanburen had discovered the review, Farmer attempted to remove it from Ripoff Report. By Ripoff Report's terms, however, users cannot remove content they have posted. Farmer then modified his review. He added a comment stating, "This is just my opinion and should be treated as so."

Vanburen sued Farmer. Citation Omitted.

Discuss Vanburens claim(s) and Farmers response(s)