Even Nuns Defame; An Example of How Witness Credibility is Everything
The report of this defamation caught my eye because of the parties involved. There is a standard joke among attorneys, that if you find yourself suing widows, orphans or nuns, your practice has probably taken a bad turn. In this case, nuns were being sued for defamation.
It started when the nuns decided to sell an old painting they had laying around. The painting was in really bad shape, not even worth hanging, but it turned out to be by a well regarded artist, William-Adolphe Bouguereau. So the nuns had it appraised by an art dealer named Mark LaSalle. Based on his appraisal, the nuns agreed to sell the painting to Mark Zaplin for $450,000.
Zaplin had the painting restored to its former glory, a fact that I think is crucial to this case, and turned around and sold it for $2.15 million, netting a tidy little profit.
The nuns sued LaSalle and Zaplin under a number of theories, claiming that Zaplin had been a straw buyer, and that LaSalle was working in concert with Zaplin and had conned the Daughters of Mary by intentionally under-appraising the painting in order to buy it at a bargain price. The two Marks counter-sued for defamation, because the nuns had made these same claims to the media. (In case you’re new here, you can never sue for defamation for things said in conjunction with a lawsuit, since those statements are privileged, but you can sue if the same statements are made to the media.)
Here is the part I find interesting and the main reason for this article. The nuns had a witness. An art dealer by the name of Paul Dumont claimed to know both LaSalle and Zaplin, and testified that LaSalle had told him that they could “make a handsome profit by giving the sisters a low appraisal value of between $350,000 and $450,000 and presenting a buyer who would pay the amount of our deliberate and intentionally inaccurate appraisal.” He claimed that LaSalle had asked him to find a “money man” who would act as a straw buyer.
Wow. Pretty strong stuff. So the nuns must have won, right? Actually, they went down in flames (can I say that about nuns?). A New York jury found against them on all of their claims, and instead awarded LaSalle $250,000 for defamation against Dumont and a church Bishop, and awarded Zaplin $75,000 against Dumont for defamation. LaSalle will also recover punitive damages.
But how can that happen with a witness who is specifically corroborating the story of the fraudulent appraisal and straw buyer? And therein lies the moral of this story. Continue reading
“Stealth” SLAPP Suit Victory
One of our latest anti-SLAPP victories provides a beautiful illustration of a “stealth” SLAPP suit that the plaintiff’s attorney failed to recognize, to the great expense of his client.
In this case our (future) client’s business partner, we’ll call him Freddy Fraudster, opened a credit card account at a local bank using our client’s personal information. When our client discovered what Freddy had done, he contacted the bank and informed the personnel there that Freddy had committed fraud, and based on this report the bank closed the account and reported the matter to the police. Our client also filed a police report, and filed for a restraining order against Freddy.
Freddy was not happy. He had a long term relationship with the bank, and based on the report by our client, the bank closed his accounts and would have nothing further to do with him. Apparently thinking the best defense is a good offense, and hoping that winning the race to the courthouse might give him some leverage, Freddy filed an action against our client. He claimed that our client had authorized him to open the account, and that the report to the bank was therefore defamatory since it accused him of fraud.
Do you see why Freddy’s action in Superior Court was a SLAPP suit? Opposing counsel didn’t, but we recognized that this was a SLAPP suit and successfully brought an anti-SLAPP motion. You see, a SLAPP suit is one that tries to block a person’s right of petition. Freddy’s attorney realized that the report to the police and the application for the restraining order were protected rights of petition, but he mistakenly thought that the report to the bank, requesting that the credit card be cancelled, was not a petition for redress and therefore did not fall under the SLAPP statute because it did not involve any government agency. No doubt, he thought that by suing our client for defamation, he could make all his evil deeds go away and get back in good stead with the bank by offering to dismiss the case if our client would withdraw his remarks to the bank, court and police. Now it sounds like a SLAPP, doesn’t it?
The interpretation of the SLAPP statutes by Freddy’s attorney was far too narrow. Consider. One day you run a credit report on yourself and you find that someone has fraudulently opened a credit card in your name. What is the first thing you are going to do? Call an official government agency? You might do that eventually, but first you are going to call the credit card company and tell them to cancel the card. Thus, contacting the credit card company, or in our case the bank, is a natural part of the entire “right of petition.”
It’s very similar to the litigation privilege. I occasionally see cases where a defendant tries to sue the plaintiff and his attorney, claiming that the demand letter sent by the attorney was defamatory because it falsely claimed the defendant did something illegal. But under Civil Code section 47, anything said in conjunction with litigation is privileged and therefore not defamatory. The demand letter from the attorney takes place before legal action is ever filed, but it is still part of the litigation process.
So it was here. The report to the bank occurred before any “right of petition” was pursued with a government agency, but calling to cancel the credit card was a natural part of that process. If a plaintiff were permitted to SLAPP a defendant by focusing on the activities leading up to the actual right of petition, then the intent of the anti-SLAPP statutes would be subverted. We explained that to the court, and our motion was granted.
Law Student Blogger Fights to Remain Anonymous
As I’ve discussed here before, there is a constitutional right to remain anonymous on the Internet. The concept harkens back to the days of “pamphleteers” — those who would distribute anonymous pamphlets, usually criticizing the government. The authors of these pamphlets needed to remain anonymous lest they be harassed by the government officials they were criticizing. Any requirement that pampleteers sign their work was deemed to be an unconstituional violation of the First Amendment.
Today’s pamphleteers use the Internet, and sometimes have a compelling need to remain anonymous. Even if their tomes are not directed at the government, they may feel the need to, say, report unsafe working conditions at their place of employment. We certainly would not want to require someone to disclose their identity under such a circumstance, nor should we permit the subpoena power to be used to determine such a person’s identity.
On the other hand, we cannot allow unfettered defamatory speech. So, to protect both interests, the courts have determined that a poster has the right to remain anonymous, unless and until the person or entity seeking that person’s identity makes a preliminary showing that the speech is defamatory.
This is a reasonable compromise. I have never had a court deny my request for the information when I am on the plaintiff’s side. The reason is simple. I don’t bring frivolous actions. If I’m suing for defamation, then it will always be the case that I can make a showing that the speech is defamatory. Conversely, other attorneys do not have such high standards. I have successfully quashed subpoenas and thereby blocked the disclosure of client information, by showing that the statements made by my anonymous clients are not defamatory.
Which leads me an article I saw today that involves all of these issues. It seems that a law student at Thomas M. Cooley Law School was not happy with that institution, and started a blog called Thomas M. Cooley Law School Scam, telling tales of wrongdoing. The school was not amused, and sued the anonymous author as a DOE defendant, and is now seeking the identity of that student. The student is fighting to remain anonymous. Read the article if you want to see how this all plays out.
In an interesting twist, the school did learn the identity of the student through some confusion by the Internet service provider over whether the subpoena was being challenged, and even put his name in some court records that could be accessed on-line. However, the attorneys representing the student convinced the court to unring the bell and remove his name from court documents. If the school cannot show the postings were defamatory, the case will have the interesting result of having to be dismissed because the identity of the DOE is unknown, even though in reality it is known. (Although, if the school can’t make that showing now, there is no reason to assume it would be successful at trial.)
Anti-SLAPP Victory — The Case of the Outraged City Council Member
In this case, our (future) client addressed a city council meeting on a matter she felt was important to the city. Specifically, the city had been rocked by some controversy involving city council members, and our client was speaking to the issue of how the newly-elected council members should go about performing their duties. To illustrate the point, she cited the example of a former council member who had taken money from special interests. The city council member in question took umbrage with the accusation that she had acted unethically, and sued our client for defamation for the comments she had made at the city council meeting. We were retained to fight the defamation action.
It is seldom that we are presented with such a clear SLAPP suit. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. What better example of public participation is there than a citizen addressing their city council? Indeed, under Civil Code section 47, any comments made during a “legislative proceeding” are absolutely privileged (meaning they can never be defamatory). Better yet from the standpoint of an anti-SLAPP motion, section 425.16(e)(1) provides that statements made before a legislative proceeding are protected speech.
So let’s run the facts through the two prongs of the anti-SLAPP analysis. First, as counsel for the defendant, it was our burden to show that the speech was protected within the meaning of the anti-SLAPP statute. That was a no-brainer in this instance, since the words were spoken at a city council meeting. And since the conduct falls under a specific anti-SLAPP section of 425.16, there was no need to show that the topic was a matter of public interest. “Any matter pending before an official proceeding possesses some measure of ‘public significance’ owing solely to the public nature of the proceeding, and free discussion of such matters furthers effective exercise of the petition rights § 425.16 was intended to protect.” (Briggs v. Eden Council for Hope & Opportunity (1999) 19 Cal.4th 1106, 1118.)
Our having shown that the speech was protected, the second prong of the anti-SLAPP analysis requires plaintiff to show a reasonable likelihood of success on her claim, which in this case would be impossible. Since section 47 makes speech at a city council meeting absolutely privileged, the speech by definition cannot constitute defamation.
So a slam-dunk anti-SLAPP motion, right? Not quite.
A SLAPP motion puts a stay on all discovery, which is one of the primary benefits of an anti-SLAPP motion because it keeps the plaintiff from using the discovery process as a sledgehammer to try to wear down the defendant. In this case, counsel for Plaintiff had served discovery prior to the anti-SLAPP motion, and argued that the court should permit that discovery prior to ruling on the anti-SLAPP. There is authority for the proposition that a plaintiff should be permitted to conduct discovery to determine whether the defendant acted with malice, because that takes away certain privileges under section 47. However, there is no malice exception for words spoken at a city council meeting, so no amount of discovery by the Plaintiff could have revealed information that would have defeated the anti-SLAPP motion.
Nonetheless, the court granted Plaintiff’s request for discovery, and that added two months to the process. It could have been that the court just did not understand the authorities we provided, but more likely the court was bending over backwards to give the plaintiff access to discovery, specifically because the judge knew she was going to grant the motion, and did not want Plaintiff to have any possible basis for appeal. In that sense, the judge might have done us a favor, but it is frustrating to deal with a frivolous action for an additional two months. We were successful, though, in greatly limiting the discovery. The court denied Plaintiff’s request to take our client’s deposition.
As expected, the discovery revealed nothing useful to the Plaintiff. Instead, the Plaintiff attempted to argue that the conduct by Defendant was “illegal” and therefore not protected. This was another instance where there is authority for the proposition being claimed, but that legal theory had no application to the case at hand. In the case of Flatley v. Mauro, an attorney had sent threatening letters to someone, threatening to sue him if he did not pay a large settlement to a client. Normally, a letter from an attorney in anticipation of litigation would be protected speech under the litigation privilege, but the Flatley court ruled that the attorney’s letters had risen to the level of extortion, and were therefore illegal and unprotected.
Plaintiff was trying to say that our client’s speech at the city council meeting was illegal and therefore unprotected according to Flatley. And how could speech at a city council meeting ever be illegal, you ask? According to Plaintiff, it was illegal because the city council’s own guidelines state that comments should be civil, and in Plaintiff’s opinion Defendant’s comments had not been civil.
Predictably, the court understood that even if the words were interpreted to be rude, a city council’s guidelines do not amount to law, and violating them does not amount to criminal conduct. The court granted our anti-SLAPP motion, striking the defamation complaint and entering judgment in our favor. The court also awarded us over $18,000 in attorney fees against the Plaintiff.
[Update -- October 14, 2011] The council member did not write us an $18,000 check. We had to garnish her wages, and she represented herself in court seeking to reduce the amount being deducted from her paychecks. To her credit, we were seeking $800 per check but she persuaded the court that given her financial circumstances it should be reduced. She was asking that nothing be taken, but the Court settled on $500 per check (every two weeks). I bring this up only for the lesson it offers. It is outrageous that a politician would try to use legal action to silence a critic based on something said at a city council meeting. The judgment is not so large that it will have any significant impact on her finances, but it is good to know that each of her next 40 or so paycheck stubs (adding costs and interest) will provide a reminder that a frivolous action has consequences.
Anti-SLAPP Victory — “If You Sue Me, I’ll Sue You!”
This case was especially satisfying because it was not a classic anti-SLAPP case involving defamation, but we persuaded the judge that the matter fell under the anti-SLAPP laws.
SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A “SLAPP suit” is one designed to silence a defendant, to prevent him from criticizing the plaintiff or, in this case, to keep him from taking a matter to court. Here, our (future) client had entered into a settlement agreement with the defendant in a prior action. The settlement agreement required the defendant company to pay damages to our client, and contained a confidentiality agreement. Two years after the settlement agreement was signed, the defendant had still not paid the damages to the plaintiff, so he retained our firm to sue to collect the money due under the agreement.
After the defendant company could not be persuaded to pay the money voluntarily, we filed an action for breach of contract, attaching a copy of the settlement agreement. The defendant answered the complaint and also filed a cross-complaint, claiming that it was a breach of the confidentially agreement to attach the settlement agreement to the complaint. Incidentally, counsel for defendant had discussed with me his intention to cross-complain on this basis, and I had warned him that would be a really bad idea. He did so anyway.
The reason the cross-complaint was a bad idea is because it was a SLAPP. Do you see why? Remember again what SLAPP stands for – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. Defendant had breached the settlement agreement, so clearly we were entitled to sue for breach of that contract. That is the public participation – taking a case before a court for redress of a grievance. By turning around and cross-complaining that our client had breached the agreement by revealing its contents in court, Defendant was in essence suing our client for suing. Attempting to punish someone for suing should always raise SLAPP concerns, but defense counsel filed the cross-complaint anyway, even after my warnings. We filed our anti-SLAPP motion against Defendant/Cross-Complainant for the cross-complaint.
So let’s run this case through the two-prong, anti-SLAPP analysis. Our burden was to show that the speech was protected under the anti-SLAPP statute. The speech here was the complaint itself, with the settlement agreement attached. Filing a complaint is a specifically protected activity under the anti-SLAPP statute, and comments made in conjunction with litigation are protected under Section 47. There was no issue that our complaint was a protected activity.
That takes us to the second prong, by which the plaintiff, here the cross-complainant, must show a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of the case, even if the speech is a protected activity. Our client was required to keep the agreement confidential in exchange for payment of the damages. But the company never paid the money, so our client was excused from performance. Further, to sue for breach of contract, a plaintiff must allege the terms of the agreement. Here, there was no way to allege a breach of contract without specifying the terms of that agreement. The company argued we should have sought to bring the complaint under seal so no one would ever know the terms, but there is not such obligation required under the law.
But the company had an even more fundamental issue with its cross-complaint. The elements of a breach of contract claim are (1) a contract; (2) a breach of that contract; (3) performance by the plaintiff; and (4) damages from the breach. The company was alleging breach of contract, but it had utterly failed to perform. I attached a declaration from our client saying he had never been paid, and the company could say nothing to refute that point. Thus, the company could never prevail on its breach of contract claim because it could not satisfy the performance element.
The court granted our anti-SLAPP motion, threw out the cross-complaint, and the company is on the hook for more than $15,000 in attorney fees.
[UPDATE -- October 14, 2011] This was a strange case. Despite the anti-SLAPP victory, counsel for the company just refused to acknowledge the findings of the court. During settlement discussions, he would always bring up the fact that his client was going to sue for breach of contract for our disclosure of the settlement agreement, even though that claim had already been denied by the court. He maintained this position right up to trial, offering on the courthouse steps to pay our client a fraction of what he was owed in exchange for a promise that the company would not sue on this non-existent claim. When we refused, defendant responded by agreeing to a stipulated judgment in the full amount we were owed. I suppose that the strategy was to wait until the last possible moment in the hope that we would blink (many attorneys will do anything to avoid going to trial, but I am not one of those attorneys), but since the agreement contained an attorney fees clause, all this accomplished was a much higher fee award. To quote John Lennon, “Strange days indeed, most peculiar, Mama.”
Privileged Statements Become Defamatory Outside Court
Thinking about yesterday’s post, I thought I should add one more point to the discussion of how false statements made in conjunction with a court action cannot form the basis for a defamation lawsuit.
I explained that under California Civil Code Section 47, and similar code sections in probably every other State, declarations made as part of a legal action are privileged, and therefore do not constitute defamation, since by definition defamation must consist of a false, unprivileged statement.
And the definition of a “legal action” is very broad, and can include statements made in anticipation of litigation. For example, Joe Client goes to an attorney and falsely tells him that Jane Defendant embezzled money from the company. The attorney sends a nasty letter to Jane, setting forth the lie about the embezzlement and stating that if she does not return the money in ten days, he will be filing a lawsuit against her.
Can Jane sue for defamation? After all, Joe Client just told a lie about her to a third party, the attorney. The answer is no. The statements to the attorney were made in anticipation of litigation, and are therefore privileged. (But whether a statement was made in anticipation of litigation can be a hotly contested issue, so be sure to run it past an attorney.)
But it is often the case that someone who lies in conjunction with litigation, will not confine himself to telling those lies only in conjunction with that litigation. As an example, I offer the current divorce case of singer Paul Anka versus his wife, Anna Anka. Paul claims they had a prenuptial agreement, Anna says they did not. She claims that if he produces a signed prenuptial agreement, that will mean he forged her signature because she never signed such a document. (I have no idea who is telling the truth, and offer the case only as an illustrative fact pattern.)
Falsely accusing someone of forgery is defamation, but not if it is said in court. So, she can sign court declarations all day, and testify on the stand, that Paul is a forger, and there would be nothing he could do in terms of defamation.
But Paul is suing for defamation, because he claims she made the statement, or at least implied it, to reporters. Such a statement, if she made it and if it is false, is pure defamation that enjoys no immunity since it was made outside the litigation context.
When clients call to say they want to sue because of lies contained in a court document, I explain why that is not possible, but tell them to be on the look out for the statement being made outside of the litigation. It is often the case that the person will have told the same lies to friends or neighbors, posted them on a blog, or published them via Facebook.
Single Publication Rule Found to Apply to Internet
I get calls every week from people wanting to sue for defamation for something that was said in a declaration. The declaration may have been filed in support of a restraining order, or in family court where parents are fighting over custody of their children. The declaration includes terrible lies about the caller, so he or she wants to sue for defamation.
No can do. For a statement to be defamatory, it must be unprivileged. Public policy and statutes create a number of privileges that keep a statement from constituting defamation. For example, in California, and likely every other State, a statement made in conjunction with a legal action is privileged, and therefore immune from any claim of defamation. It may be hard to swallow that people can lie about you in a declaration and yet be immune from a claim for defamation, but it has to be that way. Imagine the backlogs that would occur in the courts if every declaration filed yielded another lawsuit for the lies allegedly told in the declaration. Indeed, if suing for something said in a declaration was permitted, then you would be compelled to sue every time the other side filed one. After all, if you didn’t, the Court would have to view that as an admission. Of course, the newly filed lawsuit would generate declarations, so that person would now file another lawsuit, and so it would go, ad infinitum.
When I explain this reality to callers, I generally get a response that goes something like this:
“So you’re telling me, she can say ANYTHING she wants to, and there’s NOTHING I can do about it?! She can claim I’m a murderer, and I just have to take it. She can claim that I rob banks and molest my children, and I just have to smile. Is THAT what you’re telling me?”
No, that’s not even close to what I am telling you. You can’t sue for defamation, but that doesn’t mean you have to take it. You don’t need to file a separate lawsuit for something said in a declaration, because you are already IN a lawsuit. That’s why litigation is called an adversarial system. Your ex-wife files a declaration saying you beat the children, you respond by filing your own declaration saying you don’t, supported by additional declarations from friends and family saying they have never seen you mistreat your children. Every trial involves witnesses testifying to very different versions fo the facts, and the judge has to decide whom to believe. Conflicting declarations are no different.
Plus, lying in a declaration is called perjury. That’s a crime. So, your spouse doesn’t get to say ANYTHING she wants, because she can go to jail. Admittedly, declarants are seldom prosecuted for perjury, but if they tell lies, they lose credibility with the judge and lose the case because your skilled attorney will show them to be the liars they are.
So, back to the Wisconsin case.
The case involved a defamation action against the Milwaukee Brewers and its longtime radio commentator, Bob Uecker. In 2006, Uecker sought an injunction against someone named Ann Ladd, claiming Ladd was harassing him. Ladd was charged with felony stalking around the same time. That criminal charge was dismissed, but the civil court issued the injunction requested by Uecker against Ladd.
Ladd then filed a defamation lawsuit against Uecker, claiming the declaration he provided in support of the injunction was defamatory. But we know a declaration filed in court can’t be defamatory because it is privileged. The judge knew that too, and held that the allegations failed to state a claim because they were privileged. (See, I don’t make this stuff up.)
But as judges often do, he continued to analyze the case under other considerations. The declaration by Uecker, which is a public document, had been published on the Internet at thesmokinggun.com. Ladd was suing for that publication, but it had occurred more than two years prior to the time she brought her action, and would therefore be barred under Wisconsin’s statute of limitations. Ladd argued that the statute had not run, because the declaration was still available on the site, and that every time someone saw the continuing publication, that started a new limitation period.
The court did not agree. It chose to follow the “single publication rule” which holds that, like something published in a newspaper, an article published on the Internet starts the statute of limitations clock running, and that clock is not reset every time someone sees the article, or even when it is republished by another site. If such were the case, the statute of limitations would go on forever on the Internet.
Communications Decency Act Still Unknown to Many Attorneys
It seems like every few weeks I have to rail against a lawsuit I read about, wherein the attorney representing the plaintiff brings an action that is clearly barred by the Communications Decency Act. In this latest installment, we find a New York attorney who represents plaintiffs who appear to have a solid case against some individual defendants resulting from some truly horrific defamation on the Internet.
But the attorney could not leave it alone. I can almost see his mind working. He thinks to himself, “these individuals will never be able to pay the judgment, so I’d better look around for some deep pockets.” So, in addition to the individual defendants he names ning.com, wordpress.com, twitter.com, and my personal favorite, godaddy.com.
I sometimes use the analogy that naming a Internet Service Provider in an Internet defamation action is akin to naming Microsoft as a defendant because the defamer used Word to type the defamatory statements. I never thought any attorney would actually go that far, but the attorney in this case surpasses even that far flung analogy. I know it’s a foreign concept to some attorneys and their clients, but a defendant should only be held liable for damages if he, she or it has done something wrong. Here, twitter.com is named because the defendants sent out “tweets” sending their followers to the defamatory content. Godaddy.com is named because the defendants obtained the domain name there, and then set it to forward to their blog on wordpress.com. How could these companies possibly be liable? Well, according to plaintiffs and their attorney, they are liable because what the defendants did amounted to an “irresponsible use of technology.”
Apparently, in this attorney’s world, we have gone beyond even requiring that the website provider check the content of every web page posted on its server. Now it is also the obligation of twitter.com to review and authorize every tweet that is sent, and godaddy.com must view with suspicion every account that sets a domain name to forward elsewhere. Clearly there could be no Internet if such duty and liability could be imposed.
In (very slight) defense of the attorney, he does allege that these companies were informed of the nefarious use of their services, and did nothing to block the content. Among the public there is an urban legend that a company becomes liable once it is informed that it is being used to distribute the defamatory content, but an attorney should know better.
A copy of the complaint can be found here, and a detailed article about the case can be found here.
Another Blogger Bites the Dust
Another blogger learned this week that you are judged by what you say.
Tara Richerson is a teacher in Washington. She had been blogging since 2004 and many of her postings were about her job. According to court records, when she was demoted from her position as a coach at the school, she wrote the following missive:
“Save us White Boy! I met with the new me today: the person who will take my summer work and make it a full-time year-round position. … But after spending time with this guy today, I think Boss Lady 2.0 made the wrong call in hiring him. … He comes across as a smug know-it-all creep. And that’s probably the nicest way I can describe him. … And he’s white. And male. I know he can’t help that, but I think the District would have done well to recruit someone who has other connections to the community. … Mighty White Boy looks like he’s going to crash and burn.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Richerson’s blog contained “several highly personal and vituperative comments” that justified the Central Kitsap School District’s decision to transfer her from her job as a curriculum specialist and instructional coach to a classroom teaching position. The court found that Richerson’s speech was disruptive, eroded work relationships and interfered with her job performance, which involved mentoring teachers.
“Common sense indicates that few teachers would expect that they could enter into a confidential and trusting relationship with Richerson after reading her blog,” the court wrote in its Tuesday opinion. “Accordingly, the district court did not err in concluding that the legitimate administrative interests of the school district outweighed Richerson’s First Amendment interests.” The court ruled that Richerson’s blog attacking co-workers, the union and the school district was not protected speech, and therefore she was not unlawfully demoted over it.
According to court records, Richerson was transferred out of her coaching job in July 2007 after school officials discovered her blog months earlier. Another of the blog entries that Richerson came under fire for was one entry in which she allegedly attacked a teacher and union negotiator, who complained to school officials about it. It read: “What I wouldn’t give to draw a little Hitler mustache on the chief negotiator.”
The lesson to learn is that you can and will be held accountable for the things you say. Even if your comments do not cross the line into defamation, they may still be considered inappropriate for other reasons. It is disingenuous for people like Richerson to cry foul and cite the First Amendment when they are held responsible for their own comments. The First Amendment does not state that you can say whatever you want with no fear of repercussion. If someone feels strongly enough about an alleged wrong to blog about it, then they should be willing to stand by those convictions.
Communications Decency Act Shields Craigslist from Liability
I’ve explained here several times that the Communications Decency Act is a necessary evil because you could never have open forums for discussion on the Internet if the operators of the websites were required to read and approve every message posted. Perhaps the Amazons of the world would have the resources to hire a huge staff to monitor all postings, but any popular discussion site that started to attract thousands of visitors would likely be required to stop offering a public forum if it became responsible for the things posted by visitors.
Some attorneys still don’t understand this reality. Take the case of Richard M. Berman. Poor Richard was shot by someone using a handgun purchased from a for sale ad posted on Craigslist. He hired attorney Paul B. Dalnocky, who sued Craigslist for more than $10 million, claiming it was responsible for the handgun ending up in the bad guy’s hands. The civil complaint alleged Craigslist “is either unable or unwilling to allocate the necessary resources to monitor, police, maintain and properly supervise the goods and services” sold on its site. When interviewed for an article on Law.com, attorney Dalnocky said, “We weren’t seeing Craigslist as a publisher — we were seeing it as a regular business that should have monitored its business better. I mean, how can you run a business with millions of ads and have only 25 employees monitoring it?”
No, Mr. Dalnocky, the question is, how would a service like Craigslist be possible if attorneys could sue for things posted in those millions of ads? The answer is it wouldn’t be possible. You allege “millions” of ads are posted on Craigslist. Let’s assume a person could review 1000 ads during a work day. That’s probably not realistic, because that means the person would need to review more than two ads per minute (assuming an eight-hour work day with two 15 minute breaks). Some ads go on for pages so I don’t think one could really review more than two ads per minute, but let’s go with 1000 just to keep the numbers simple. Thus, Craigslist would need to hire 1000 employees for every one million ads posted. It’s going to be very difficult for old Craig to maintain his business model that permits me to post free ads for my 8-track tapes if he is required to hire thousands of employees.
And, Mr. Dalnocky, what would those thousands of employees be looking for, exactly? Guns can be legally sold, and I did not see anything in the court’s decision about any alleged illegality of the gun sale in question. Rather, your complaint alleged that Craigslist was liable because it breached its “duty of care to ensure that inherently hazardous objects, such as handguns, did not come into the hands of . . . individuals, such as Mr. Ortiz.” (Ortiz was alleged to have shot Richard Berman.) What, in that ad, would have put the reviewer on notice that this gun sale was going to end badly?
The attorney representing Craigslist is no doubt a subscriber to the Internet Defamation Blog, and therefore knew that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is not limited only to claims for defamation. Craigslist moved for dismissal under §230, which states that no “provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” and that no “cause of action may be brought and liability imposed under any State law that is inconsistent with this section.”
The court properly dismissed the case under the CDA because, let’s say it all together, a website operator cannot be held liable for comments (or ads) posted by third parties, and is not liable for failing to somehow monitor those comments (or ads). One of the earliest cases involving the CDA was an action against Ebay. Someone sued, claiming that Ebay should be held liable for the counterfeit items that were being posted and sold, trying to impose on it an obligation to review and investigate every ad. Ebay prevailed in that action, and Craigslist properly prevailed in this one.
The full court decision can be found here.
