Are there any legal consequences for violating a cease and desist letter? I was sent a cease and desist letter from my university for annoying administration with a particular issue, and this letter asks me to direct all communication to their gen. counsel's office. My question is: how serious is this letter? Can they really take legal action against me if I contact anyone at the university, even regarding something unrelated to the original issue?
Edited to remove personal details
A cease and desist letter is basically a formal way of them saying, "stop what you are doing, and please don't do it again."
It is not proof of tortious conduct by you, nor is it proof of illegal conduct by you. It does not open up an avenue for the university to sue you, nor does it open up an avenue for the university to have you committed to a mental institution. Your behaviour after receiving such a letter does matter however.
What is most likely their next step should you continue emailing members of the university, is to apply for an injunction. It is possible that should the injunction be granted, you may be liable to pay fees. Breaching an injunction can have serious consequences, including jail.
I would recommend against writing a letter apologizing. You are doing the very thing they asked you not to do. If you do feel in inclined to apologize, you should write the letter to the general counsel and ask them to forward it along. They probably won't. Obviously you have to be quite careful with the content of the letter.
You are almost certainly within your rights to continue to email their general counsel. In addition, they almost certainly cannot stop you from communicating with the state agency responsible for the university.
I'm not going to risk being charged with harassment, involuntarily committed (can they do that if I'm not a danger to myself/others?) or any other serious consequences.
That's not even a worry. But given the far you have over it, it's time to stop talking, stop thinking, and get yourself competent legal counsel. Not least, so they can tell you that :)
Right now, you are your own worst enemy. I get it, it's an open wound, your brain can't stop thinking about it, and you are filled with the drive/need to do something. Catch yourself at that, and decide what you want to do: Handle those emotions (counseling/support/priest/letting go/etc.) or resolve the external situation?
The emotional thing is out of our bailiwick, but I want you to be very clear on what it is you really need before you go down the legal path. Pursuing the legal path to answer that urge to do "something" / fill that emotional hole is a huge mistake that will lead to even more suffering. But not criminal charges, unless somebody does something criminal.
Its meaning/value are limited. If it comes from the perpetrator, obviously, it means nothing and is a complete joke. Imagine Harvey Weinstein sending a cease and desist to stop talking about their sexual abuse! That would be meaningless.
If it came from the university's counsel, then it has the small value of allowing them to trot into court and say "We served you notice", but that doesn't mean anything either, unless they can show you engaged in a pattern of behavior that was extreme and bizarre.
The mere seeking of redress is perfectly reasonable -- just ask any debt collector! However in the law, there is a balance between the right to demand, and the right not to be harassed.
And you bet there's a free speech argument here -- they can't force you to un-friend the people you know there! And they can't force you to "go away"!
When a person or company says "It's time for you to start talking to my lawyer", you should probably heed that. The court system (being made of lawyers) does endorse this strategy; not least because beyond a certain point, a lawsuit becomes the likeliest course of resolution, and at that point, legal counsel is supposed to be the single channel through which everything goes.
So yes, if someone has said "Stop talking to random employees, start talking to counsel", you ought to heed that and talk to counsel.
The reason is that when you get to lawsuit, they can use that against you. Once you decide to sue, you must start going through the single channel of the lawyers. For instance if you interview an employee, that's supposed to happen in deposition with both lawyers present. If you have communications without them, that's called an "ex-parté" communication, and it creates a lot of problems for the case. This can taint your case and make you look sloppy.
And mind you, this may not be your lawsuit you are tainting. For instance if the professor is already defending.
If you have testimony to support one side, go talk to them about how best to use that testimony. Again this has to go through their lawyers, because they know their strategy and how you could help; and you do not.
Even if they haven't filed a lawsuit, you can present evidence via something called an affadavit, a written statement which you sign and get notarized. They may be able to wave it at the university and get a concession.
We're a long long way from this thing placing anyone at risk for a ride in a police car. Right now it sounds like everything is an academic matter, it's not even a civil matter where jail is also not a possibility.
So first, things would have to cross the line into where the civil courts were involved. And then, you would have to really anger a judge to the point where the judge declares you in contempt of the court's authority, and then the judge can jail you as a matter of caprice. The only path i can imagine is if somebody found a way to frame what's happening as stalking and got a restraining order (those you must obey) and then you blatantly ignored it. Restraining orders work on the "contempt of court" mechanism.
The only other possible way is if things go so bad they crossed into criminal law. But usually competent lawyering keeps small-time and first-time offenders out of jail.
A cease and desist letter usually alleges some illegal conduct such as defamation, and threatens a lawsuit if you do not cease and desist. If you received such a letter written by an actual attorney, the risk is that if you continue, you might get sued. Consulting an attorney, who will read the letter, would not be unwise. Their grounds for a suit would not be apologizing to the professor: however, you should be very careful in what you say in that letter, to be sure that it is not in fact defamatory (do not rely on your own intuitions about what constitutes defamation).
The main legal effect of a cease and desist letter is to establish that if you continue in your course of conduct, that your actions were made with full knowledge of the contents of the cease and desist letter, and intentionally in defiance of that request of the cease and desist letter.
There are many civil wrongs and criminal offenses that are only actionable if made knowingly or intentionally, or which are subject to more severe punishments or sanctions or liability if done intentionally rather than merely accidentally or without knowledge of the pertinent facts.
A cease and desist letter can also be used to undermine a response to a lawsuit in legal filings that is untenable if one is aware of the facts demonstrated in the cease and desist letter.
For example, in a case of alleged defamation, there is generally no liability in an important subclass of cases if a statement is not made with knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. But if a cease and desist letter alerts someone to the fact that their statement was untrue (e.g. a claim that someone isn't a U.S. citizen when a verifiable copy of a passport and/or birth certificate are provided, or an obvious case of mistaken identity when your client has the same same but is a different person than the one the speaker intended to refer to) and the statement is reiterated after receiving the cease and desist letter, there might be defamation liability for the statements made after the cease and desist letter is sent.
Often, in patent, trademark, trade secret, and copyright cases, a cease and desist letter putting someone on notice that they are violating a patent, trademark or copyright will increase the damages that are available for a violation. And, in a patent case, the substantive right is a right to demand something not use your patent, and not a right to have others pro-actively refrain from using your patent, so a cease and desist letter is a pre-requisite to bringing a patent infringement lawsuit.
If someone responded in answer to a lawsuit alleging patent infringement arguing that they didn't know about the existence of the patent even after receiving a cease and desist letter, the party or the lawyer for the party sued might be sanctioned by the court for presenting a frivolous defense to the lawsuit.
A cease and desist letter can also sometimes function as a crude settlement offer - providing someone an opportunity to avoid a lawsuit by discontinuing their actions.
A cease and desist letter can also be a formal and polite way to inform you that further communications are futile because the institution has made up its mind and making a non-legally binding request that you stop because it isn't appreciated and comes across to them as excessive and rude.
All of this being said, if there is a bona fide dispute even after the cease and desist letter is received regarding the existence of legal liability, for example, when someone gets a cease and desist letter demanding that they not trespass on land when there is a bona fide dispute over who owns the land that does not have an obvious resolution based merely upon the facts disclosed in the cease and desist letter, usually a cease and desist letter is ignored.
The facts in the question don't appear to obviously indicate anything other than a polite and firm request that you cease to do what you are doing with no legal consequences, but conveying the message to you that further correspondence from you would be futile, because the institution has made up its mind regarding how it will handle the situation.
But, without more specific facts it isn't possible to know if there are other consequences that could be invoked by the university (e.g. making a notation on your transcript if it is requested by a third party).
All other things being equal, it would probably be better to stop communicating, rather than following up with an apology or response, unless you have a good reason to act otherwise.
Because you're dealing with a public university, there's virtually nothing they can do if you continue writing letters. The only real exception would be if they give anyone reasonable grounds to believe you're a danger to yourself or others, or otherwise fall into any of several very narrow categories of unprotected speech.
This sort of thing is right in the heartland of First Amendment-protected activity, which prohibits the government from interfering with your right to petition the government for a redress of your grievances. You are not obligated to run your petition through general counsel or anyone else.
EDIT: Just coming back to link to a recent decision addressing some of the comments making the unsupported claim that your letters could be punished as harassment. Under First Amendment law, "harassment" is generally still protected speech in the setting of communicating with the government. The new case involves a man repeatedly e-mailing Sen. Mitch McConnell with messages like:
turtle,
If you push this for Friday, the resistance is coming to DC to slash your throat. You will die in thestreet by DC resistance motherfucker!!!!!
You will not live to regret it!!!!!!
The feds charged him with telecommunications harassment, but the court threw charges out, saying the First Amendment does not permit the government to make it a criminal offense for someone "to harass a public official with his speech." The decision is United States v. Weiss, No. 20-cr-00013-CRB-1 (N.D. Cal., July 28, 2020).
