In all of the cases Volokh investigated that Daniel Warner filed, the defendant appears to be fraudulent at best and non-existent at worst. Further, in each of these cases, the defendant represented themselves (pro se) and quickly agreed to the injunction. Not only was Volokh’s private investigator unable to find the defendants, but the defendants appeared to be unrelated to the content. In fact, in one particular case, Warner had direct knowledge of the party behind the content in question, yet the named defendant – again – appeared to be non-existent.
It appears that Warner discovered that he could move the cases (and thus the remove the negative reviews about his clients) much quicker if the defendant agreed to the injunction sooner. So, why not just create a fictional defendant, that just so happens to be “representing” themselves?
Further muddying the waters, is the fact that the notaries on several key documents that Daniel Warner filed also appear to be non-existent. A comparison of the signatures of each notary shows the handwriting to be remarkably similar, as if the notaries are all the same person.
