Internet Solutions filed a defamation lawsuit against Archie Garga-Richardson in Florida state court in January 2009.  The complaint alleges that Garga-Richardson sent a defamatory email to four Internet Solutions employees in connection with another Internet Solutions lawsuit against him in California.  The California lawsuit revolves around statements made on Garga-Richardson's website ScamFraudAlert.  See Internet Solutions v. Garga-Richardson (2nd Lawsuit) for details. 

Update:

02/02/2009 - Garga-Richardson filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

In July 2008, Joseph Styger, a San Francisco dentist, sued former patient Deborah Johnson and various John Doe defendants over a critical review that Johnson posted to consumer review website Yelp.com.  According to the Complaint, the review falsely accused Styger of being an "unethical dentist." Cmplt. ¶ 6.

On August 22, 2008, Johnson filed a special motion to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP law.  The court granted the motion to strike on September 23, 2008, finding that "plaintiff has not demonstrated a probability of prevailing on his claim against Johnson" due to the California's one-year statute of limitations for defamation. See California Code of Civil Procedure 340(c).

Susan and Robert Johnson, owners of Cozy Kittens Cattery, LLC, sued consumer review site ComplaintsBoard.com, its (alleged) publishers Elizabeth Arden and Michelle Reitenger, and two ComplaintsBoard users who commented on a complaint thread about Susan Johnson and her cat breeding business. The Johnsons also sued InMotion Hosting, Inc., the hosting service for the website. The complaint alleges injurious falsehood, defamation, and intentional inflication of emotional distress against all six defendants.

The complaint also includes a federal trademark infringement claim against one of the commenters, Kathleen Heineman, who allegedly violated the Johnsons' trademark rights in their "Cozy Kittens" trademark by "use of the name 'Cozy Kittens and Cuddly Cats'" in connection with her competing cat breeding business. (This allegation is puzzling given that Heineman's business appears to be called Boutique Kittens.)

The claims against Arden, Reitenger, ComplaintsBoard.com, and InMotion seek to hold them liable for publishing third-party content (Lowry and Heineman's comments) and refusing to remove this content upon demand by the Johnsons. These claims are likely barred by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but it does not look like any defendant has asserted this defense so far.

The Johnsons originally filed suit in state court in Missouri in June 2008, but Heineman removed the case to federal court in October 2008. After removal, Heineman, a resident of Colorado, moved to dismiss the complaint against her for lack of personal jurisdiction. This motion was pending as of January 15, 2009.

Before removal, the state court entered a default judgment against Melanie Lowry, who did not appear in the case. Lowry later challenged the default judgment by sending a letter to the federal district judge.

InMotion moved to dismiss the complaint in state court (grounds unknown), but did not refile the motion in federal court after removal. Based on InMotion's failure to answer or file a motion to dismiss in federal court, the Johnsons moved for entry of a default judgment against it. InMotion then appeared, arguing that the court should deny the Johnsons' motion for entry of default and hear its motion to dismiss on the merits.

Arden, Reitenger, and ComplaintsBoard.com have not appeared in the federal action. The reason for this is not clear -- they may have defaulted in the state court action, they may have settled with the Johnsons, or they may never have been served in the first place. The disputed comments no longer appear on ComplaintsBoard.com.

UPDATE:  

6/8/2009 - Court granted the Motions to Dismiss filed by Defendants Heineman, Lowry, and InMotion Hosting 

7/10/2009 - Court dismissed without prejudice the claims against Defendants Elizabeth Arden d/b/a ComplaintsBoard.com, ComplaintsBoard.com, and Michelle Reitenger 

8/4/2010 - 8th Circuit affirms dismissal of claims 

Nam Tai Electronics, Inc., a Hong Kong-based electronics company, subpoenaed AOL in connection with a lawsuit against 51 "John Doe" defendants alleging libel, trade libel, and violations of California's unfair business practices statute.  The lawsuit revolved around negative comments about Nam Tai posted to a Yahoo! message board pertaining to Nam Tai. 

After filing the complaint, Nam Tai obtained a subpoena in California directing Yahoo! to disclose its subscriber data (IP address) for "scovey2," one of the anonymous forum posters.  Based on this information, Nam Tai determined that "scovey2" obtained his Internet access through AOL.   Nam Tai then obtained a "commission" for out-of-state discovery from the California court to depose AOL's custodian of records in Virginia, in order to seek identifying information for "scovey2."  Nam Tai asked a Virginia state trial court to issue a subpoena, and AOL moved to quash the subpoena. 

The trial court denied AOL's motion to quash, concluding that it would enforce the California "commission" and reasoning that First Amendment concerns implicated by the libel and trade libel claims were not implicated by the California unfair business practices claim.  The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed, relying heavily on the principle of "comity" (that is, the respect states extend to the judgments of other states).  

Brenda Enterline subpoenaed The Pocono Record, a daily newspaper and news website serving northeast Pennsylvania, seeking the identity of individuals who made anonymous forum posts on its website.  

In September 2008, Enterline sued the Pocono Medical Center for sexual harassment.  The Pocono Record published an article about her lawsuit in its print and online editions.  A number of commenters posted to the website forum associated with the article, and some of the comments suggested that the authors had personal knowledge of the facts at issue in Enterline's lawsuit.  She then subpoenaed The Pocono Record, seeking information identifying eight of the anonymous speakers. The newspaper objected to the subpoena, arguing that it was premature (discovery had not yet commenced in the lawsuit), that it violated the First Amendment rights of the commenters, and that the reporter's privilege protected the identity of the commenters as sources.  Enterline line moved to compel The Record to comply and for sanctions.

The district court denied Enterline's motion. It held that The Record had standing to assert the First Amendment rights of the third-party anonymous commenters and that disclosure was not warranted under the circumstances.  The court refrained from determining "the full extent of the First Amendment right to anonymity," instead deciding the case based on the "good faith" standard applied in Doe v. 2TheMart.com, 140 F.Supp.2d 1088 (W.D. Was. 2001), which Enterline had argued for in her brief.  Under this standard, the court determined that disclosure was not appropriate because Enterline had not demonstrated that the information was unavailable from other sources.  The court did not address the newspaper's other grounds for refusing to comply with the subpoena.

In January 2009, Fashion model Liskula Cohen petitioned a New York state court for "pre-action" discovery from Google Inc. (on behalf of its subsidiary Blogger.com), seeking the identity of the anonymous operator of the Skanks in NYC blog.  The blog consists of only 5 posts, all posted on the same day in August 2008, and all making derogatory comments about Cohen.  According to court documents, Cohen alleges that the blog entries, including photographs, captions to photographs, and commentary describe her as a "skank" and a "ho," and otherwise depict her as sexually promiscuous, dishonest, and unclean.  She claims that these postings are libelous per se because they impugn her chastity and negatively reflect on her qualifications as a model.

On January 5, the court issued an "order to show cause," which required Google to appear before the court on January 26 for argument about whether disclosure of the blogger's identity should be ordered. 

Update:

1/26/09 - At a hearing, the court ordered Google to notify the anonymous blogger of the pending discovery request.

2/18/09 - Through counsel, the anonymous blogger filed a brief in opposition to Cohen's application for pre-action discovery. 

03/20/09 - The blog went offline sometime in March. The parties reportedly dispute what that means for the case.

8/17/09 - The court granted Cohen's petition, ruling that the statements on the blog were reasonably susceptible of defamatory meaning.

8/21/09 - Press reports indicate that the anonymous blogger's name is Rosemary Port.

"Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the Web," Mathis said. "It is fair and benefits both Web users and the originating site."

Update:

12/22/08 - Judge Young denied GateHouse's request for a temporary restraining order and set a hearing on plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction for January 5, 2009.  The court indicated that the motion for a preliminary injunction will be "collapsed with a trial on the merits."

12/30/08 -  Parties filed a joint motion (ordered by the Court) to set a trial date of January 26, 2009.  Fact discovery is to be completed by January 16.

1/12/09- GateHouse filed an Unopposed Motion for Ruling on Jurisdiction, arguing that the Court has jurisdiction over its copyright claims even though the Copyright Office has not yet issued a certificate of copyright for the works at issue.

1/16/09 - New York Times Company filed a Motion To Join Globe Newspaper Company, Inc. and Boston Globe Electronic Publishing, Inc., and Leave To File Answer, Affirmative Defenses And Counterclaims including a proposed Answer, Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaims.

1/21/09 - Court granted (without a written order) the New York Times Company's motion for joinder.

1/22/09 - GateHouse filed a proposed amended complaint.

1/26/09 - Case dismissed due to settlement.  The New York Times has posted a copy of the Letter Agreement between the parties.

1/27/09 - Rick Daniels, president of GateHouse Media New England, sent a memo to GateHouse employees describing the company's reasons for settling the lawsuit.

In September 2008, an Oregon state judge ruled that Oregon's media shield law, found at Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 44.510 to 44.540, protected the identity of anonymous commenters who posted allegedly defamatory statements on The Portland Mercury and Willamette Week websites.

According to the Portland Mercury, staff writer Amy Ruiz wrote a post in January 2008 about Portland mayoral candidate Sho Dozono.  In the comments section, a site user going by "Ronald" posted negative comments about Dozono's ties to a local businessman, Terry Beard.  The same commenter allegedly posted similar statements on the Willamette Week site. Proceeding anonymously, Beard filed a lawsuit against "Ronald" and other anonymous commenters and served a subpoena on The Portland Mercury and Williamette Week, seeking documents and records identifying them. When the two newspapers failed to produce responsive documents, Beard moved to compel them to produce documents identifying the anonymous commenters. The two newspapers teamed up to oppose the discovery request and won. 

Interestingly, Judge James E. Redman of Clackamas County Court did not treat the anonymous commenters as confidential sources.  Section 44.520(a) of the Oregon Revised Statutes protects from disclosure "[t]he source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public." Instead, the court relied on section 44.520(b), which protects "[a]ny unpublished information obtained or prepared by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public."  Section 44.510(1) defines "information" as including "any written, oral, pictorial or electronically recorded news or other data." The court characterized "Ronald's" IP address as data.

On the question of whether the newspapers obtained this data in the course of newsgathering, Judge Redman drew a line based on the relevance of the blog comment to the post it's attached to:

If the comment had been totally unrelated to the blog post, then the argument could be made that the Portland Mercury did not receive it in the "course of gathering, receiving, or processing information for any medium of communication to the public." (source)

Concluding that the IP address fit within the shield law's "broad statutory language," the court denied Beard's motion to compel. Presumably, Beard will not be able to pursue the underlying lawsuit without the identity of the anonymous commenters.

On December 28, 2007, Ed and Brenda Hammitt filed a defamation lawsuit in the Superior Court  of Chattooga County, Georgia against Ken Busbin, Teresa Watson, operator of RomeNewsByWatson.com, and RomeNewsByWatson.com, Inc.  The Hammits alleged that Busbin pseudonymously posted a comment on RomeNewsByWatson.com accusing them of conspiring to grow and sell marijuana. 

Watson and RomeNewsByWatson moved to dismiss the complaint based on section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230).  Before the court ruled on the motion, all of the defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Northern  District of Georgia, claiming that the federal court had jurisdiction because of the federal law issue in the case.  The Hammits moved to remand the case to state court.  The federal court granted the motion to remand, holding that it could not exercise subject-matter jurisdiction over the case based merely on the defendants' claimed defense under CDA 230.

Currently, the case is pending in Chattooga County Superior Court.

In August 2008,  Michigan venture capital firm EDF Ventures subpoenaed Adeo Ressi, operator of The Funded, a website that enables entrepreneurs to rate venture capitalists anonymously.  The subpoena issued in connection with a defamation lawsuit against an anonymous commenter to the website, who warned readers to avoid EDF Ventures "unless you are desperate."

Ressi complied with the subpoena, but indicated that the records in his possession "showed nothing material about the identity" of the anonymous poster.  This is likely because The Funded has adopted affirmative measures to protect the anonymity of site users.

The disputed comment is still online.