The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent a cease-and-desist letter to Andrew Whitehead, claiming that Whitehead had made defamatory statements about the organization on his website. The letter stated that CAIR would file a lawsuit against Whitehead unless Whitehead agreed to voluntarily cease-and-desist the publication of defamatory statements about CAIR. Furthermore, the letter stated that CAIR would file a lawsuit if Whitehead published the cease-and-desist letter, claiming that it was personal and confidential. The letter is currently openly available on Whitehead's website.

CAIR followed through with its threat and intitated a lawsuit in April 2004. More information on that lawsuit is available here.

On July 27, 2007, Khalaji's lawyers sent a letter to Derkhshan, his domain registrar (GoDaddy), and his hosting service (Hosting Matters, Inc). According to the letter, Derakhshan's posts alleged that Khalaji was working for a right wing think tank that openly supported the policy of 'regime change" in Iran and was "giving ideas to the cruelest and dirtiest enemies of Iran and humanity." The letter also took issue with a claim that Khalaji was "the only Iranian who has worked for both Khameni's office and Dick Cheney's, who intends to bomb Khalaji's former office building plus thousands of men, women and children living in the surrounding area." Derakhshan disputes the accuracy of Khalaji's translations of these statements.

As well as demanding that the hosting company and domain registrar take down the defamatory statements, Khalaji sought an apology and $10,000 in settlement. After a lengthy back-and-forth between Derakhshan and Hosting Matters about what material Derakhshan would take down from his blogs, Hosting Matters terminated Derakhshan's accounts in August 2007. Days later, Derakhshan's blogs were back online with a different hosting service, 1&1 Internet, apparently with the disputed posts still in place.

Khalaji filed a lawsuit against Derakhshan in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in October 2007. (For more information, please see the CMLP's database entry, Khalaji v. Derakhshan.)

Justin Leonard runs the websites infomercialratings.com and infomercialscams.com. These websites give consumers the opportunity to voice their criticisms and defenses of various products and services. Pages on these websites are devoted to criticisms and defenses of Video Professor, Inc., a Colorado company that develops and sells video tutorials on a variety of computer-related topics. Apparently, a number of anonymous posters made critical statements about Video Professor's products on these forum pages.

In August 2007, Video Professor filed a John Doe lawsuit against 100 anonymous defendants (and some anonymous corporations and LLCs too!) in federal court in Colorado. The complaint includes claims for violations of the Lanham Act, violations of a Colorado consumer protection statute, tortious interference with business relations, and common law product disparagement/defamation. The complaint states that the anonymous defendants made false and defamatory statements about Video Professor's products, but does not identify any specific statements.

Video Professor moved ex parte for an order authorizing it to conduct discovery, in the form of third-party subpoenas requiring the recipients to produce documents identifying the anonymous posters. The court granted the motion.

On September 6, 2007, Justin Leonard's company, Leonard Fitness, Inc., received a subpoena, requesting that it produce identifying information for the author of every post on Leonard's websites relating to Video Professor. Along with the subpoena, Video Professor provided a check for $40.81 to compensate Leonard for his expenses in complying with the subpoena.

The Public Citizen Litigation Group took up the matter on behalf of Leonard and sent a letter to Video Professor's counsel objecting to the subpoena and laying out the reasons why, in its view, the subpoena was invalid.

Specifically, the letter argued that the subpoena encroached upon the rights of the anonymous defendants to engage in anonymous speech on the Internet without meeting the legal requirements necessary to justify disclosure of their identities. It also argued that the subpoena was unduly burdensome because it called for information relating to all postings about Video Professor on Leonard's sites, rather than identifying which postings were allegedly defamatory or otherwise unlawful. Finally, the letter stressed that the check provided with the subpoena was not sufficient to compensate Leonard for the work he would have to do to comply with the subpoena.

Communications ensued between Public Citizen and counsel for Video Professor. Video Professor narrowed the list of anonymous posters to 43. It also endeavored to provide Public Citizen with evidence supporting its allegations for each of the postings.

On or around October 18, 2007, Public Citizen sent a notice to each of the 43 posters identified by Video Professor. The letter informed the posters of the pendency of the lawsuit and the request for identifying information about them. It encouraged them to hire a lawyer and explained that Leonard would not produce any documents before October 31, 2007, in order to to give them the opportunity to file a motion to quash the subpoena in federal court. It also indicated that Public Citizen had asked Video Professor for evidence to support its claims, and that Public Citizen (on behalf of Leonard) would move to quash the subpoena should it determine that Video Professor had not done so.

On October 19, 2007, Public Citizen sent Video Professor a letter, explaining that it had sent the notice. The letter also questioned the legal adequacy of the Lanham Act claims and the adequacy of Video Professor's factual showing on the defamation claims. It requested more documents to establish, among other things, the falsity of the statements at issue.

We are not aware of the filing of any motion to quash yet.

Over a two-year period, Jessica Beaumont wrote and published over 1000 posts on a white supremacist forum called Stormfront White Nationalist Community, using the pseudonym "Jessy Destruction."

Here are some illustrations of her alleged postings: Regarding blacks moving to western Canada, she wrote, “It could get worse, lets just cross our fingers and hope they all die off from AIDS.” Regarding mixed-race relationships, she wrote, "Ever seen a tar black negroid and a chink? That’s a pretty sick/funny site," and she recalled witnessing a white man “with a veiled muslim that looked fresh off the boat, with the mud baby in the stroller!” Regarding Jews, she wrote, "I don’t understand why someone would attack helpless dogs [as] opposed to going after those dirty Jewish animals directly," and, "I believe that Jews are literally spawn of Satan himself." In one post she summed up her feelings for non-whites as follows: "I just don’t feel the need to be-friend non-whites, as they can do nothing for me, nor would I like to associate with them. I am fine with my own kind, and always will/have been. Theres my f*cking answer. Good enough?"

In January 2006, Richard Warman, an Ottawa-based lawer who specializes in human rights law, filed a complaint against Beaumont before the Candian Human Rights Tribunal. He alleged that, by publishing discriminatory statements on the Internet, Beaumont had exposed individuals and minority groups to hatred and/or contempt in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The Canadian Human Rights Commission, of which Warman formerly was a member, participated in the litigation.

After a hearing, the tribunal found for Warman, and entered an order prohibiting Beaumont from communicating similar hate messages through the Internet in the future. The tribunal also ordered her to pay special compensation of $3,000 (Canadian) to Warman for discriminatory statements written against him, including calling him "that retarded jew warman." (Although Warman is not Jewish, the tribunal reasoned that "it is obvious that Ms. Beaumont perceived him as such.") Additionally, the tribunal levied a $1,500 (Canadian) penalty against Beaumont, payable to the government of Canada.

During the hearing, avowed neo-Nazi Paul Fromm testified on Beaumont's behalf, and while not a lawyer, provided Beaumont with assistance.

(Candian Dollar amounts were converted into U.S. Dollars for purposes of the "Verdict or Settlement Amount" field.)

Justin Leonard runs the websites infomercialratings.com and infomercialscams.com. These websites give users of infomerical products the opportunity to voice their criticisms and defenses of these products and associated sales tactics. Pages on these websites are devoted to criticisms and defenses of Video Professor, Inc., a Colorado company that develops and sells video tutorials on a variety of computer-related topics. Apparently, a number of anonymous posters made critical statements about Video Professor's products on these forum pages.

In August 2007, Video Professor filed a John Doe lawsuit against 100 anonymous defendants (and some anonymous corporations and LLCs too!) in federal court in Colorado. The complaint includes claims for violations of the Lanham Act, violations of a Colorado consumer protection statute, tortious interference with business relations, and common law product disparagement/defamation. The complaint states that the anonymous defendants made false and defamatory statements about Video Professor's products, but does not identify any specific statements.

Video Professor moved ex parte for an order authorizing it to conduct discovery, in the form of third-party subpoenas requiring the recipients to produce documents identifying the anonymous posters. The court granted the motion.

On September 6, 2007, Justin Leonard's company, Leonard Fitness, Inc., received a subpoena, requesting that it produce identifying information for the author of every post on Leonard's websites relating to Video Professor. Along with the subpoena, Video Professor provided a check for $40.81 to compensate Leonard for his expenses in complying with the subpoena.

The Public Citizen Litigation Group took up the matter on behalf of Leonard and sent a letter to Video Professor's counsel objecting to the subpoena and laying out the reasons why, in its view, the subpoena was invalid.

Specifically, the letter argued that the subpoena encroached upon the rights of the anonymous defendants to engage in anonymous speech on the Internet without meeting the legal requirements necessary to justify disclosure of their identities. It also argued that the subpoena was unduly burdensome because it called for information relating to all postings about Video Professor on Leonard's sites, rather than identifying which postings were allegedly defamatory or otherwise unlawful. Finally, the letter stressed that the check provided with the subpoena was not sufficient to compensate Leonard for the work he would have to do to comply with the subpoena.

Communications ensued between Public Citizen and counsel for Video Professor. Video Professor narrowed the list of anonymous posters to 43. It also endeavored to provide Public Citizen with evidence supporting its allegations for each of the postings.

On or around October 18, 2007, Public Citizen sent a notice to each of the 43 posters identified by Video Professor. The letter informed the posters of the pendency of the lawsuit and the request for identifying information about them. It encouraged them to hire a lawyer and explained that Leonard would not produce any documents before October 31, 2007, in order to to give them the opportunity to file a motion to quash the subpoena in federal court. It also indicated that Public Citizen had asked Video Professor for evidence to support its claims, and that Public Citizen (on behalf of Leonard) would move to quash the subpoena should it determine that Video Professor had not done so.

On October 19, 2007, Public Citizen sent Video Professor a letter, explaining that it had sent the notice. The letter also questioned the legal adequacy of the Lanham Act claims and the adequacy of Video Professor's factual showing on the defamation claims. It requested more documents to establish, among other things, the falsity of the statements at issue.

Update:

12/26/2007 - Video Professor filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, ending the case.

07/10/2009 - Consumer Law and Policy Blog reports that the websites infomercialratings.com and infomercialscams.com have been taken down.

In 2001, Kwang Yul Cha, a Korean fertility researcher and fertility clinic operator, co-wrote a paper entitled "Does prayer influence the success of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer? Report of a masked, randomized trial." The controversial paper, which appeared in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, reported a higher success rate for in vitro fertilization in women who were prayed for compared to those who were not.

In March 2007, Bruce Flamm, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California at Irvine and an enduring critic of Cha's prayer study, published an article entitled "Prayer Study Author Charged With Plagiarism" in Ob. Gyn. News, a print medical news journal that is also available online. The one-page article included the following break-out text: "This may be the first time in history that all three authors of a randomized, controlled study have been found guilty of fraud, deception, and/or plagiarism." (Emphasis added.)

The allegations of fraud and deception related to Cha's co-authors, Rogerio Lobo and Daniel Wirth. The allegation of plagiarism related to Cha's co-authorship of another article, published in Fertility and Sterility in 2005. The LA Times reported in February 2007 that Alan DeCherney, editor-in-chief of Fertility and Sterility, had identified this second article as plagiarized (after it was published). DeCherney later retracted this comment when Cha threatened to sue him and the LA Times.

Cha filed a lawsuit against Flamm for defamation in California state court on August 31, 2007. Cha alleges that the implication of "found guilty" in the sentence quoted above is that he has been convicted of plagiarism by a court or administrative body, which he has not.

According to Flamm's lawyer, the meaning of the sentence, when read in the context of the article as a whole, is not that Cha has been convicted of plagiarism by a jury, but has been found by his scientific peers to have been guilty of plagiarism, an assertion which is supported by DeCherney's earlier statements. Flamm claims not to have known that DeCherney in fact retracted his statement after also receiving legal threats from Cha.

The court granted Flamm's motion to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16) on November 20, 2007. Cha's attorneys filed a motion to vacate the decision based on new evidence and other arguments, and the court granted that motion on January 24, 2008, reversing the dismissal.

On April 21, 2008, the Superior Court again dismissed the case.

Update:

10/25/2009 - the California Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal.

02/2010 - The Callifornia Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal. 

OMDA Oil & Gas sued Arthur J. Porcari after he posted comments on private investor boards including the Yahoo! OMDA Investor Chat Board.

In June 2004, Porcari, a large stockholder of publicly traded shares in OMDA, told the Chairman of OMDA Adam Barnett that he believed that OMDA shares were undervalued and offered to assist the firm in expanding its operations. Barnett accepted the offer, and Porcari took over the firm's communications operations (he did not, however, become an officer of the company). In March 2006, Barnett and Porcari had a falling out over Barnett's management of the company, and Barnett put an end to Porcari's work for OMDA.

Before and after his involvement with Barnett, Porcari posted comments on the Yahoo! chat board criticizing OMDA's management and replying to Barnett's posts.

On March 1, 2007, OMDA sued Porcari in Texas state court, alleging that his Yahoo! posts were defamatory, constituted business disparagement, and breached Porcari's fiduciary duties to OMDA by disclosing confidential information obtained during his involvement with the firm.

The trial court granted OMDA a temporary injunction restraining Porcari from publishing defamatory, disparaging or negative statements about OMDA or any of its officers, directors, members, shareholders or affiliates, and from disclosing information he obtained between June 1, 2004 and March 31, 2006.

In June 2007, Porcari appealed the trial court's grant of the injunction. In October, a Texas appellate court reversed the trial court's decision, finding that the injunction constituted an unconsistutional prior restraint on Porcari's speech. The court ruled that claims of defamation and trade libel are not themselves sufficient to justify prohibiting a litigant from making negative statements about a company because damages can redress the harm. The court further held that the order requiring Porcari to refrain from disclosing any information obtained in the period from June 2004 to March 2006 was overbroad in restricting Porcari from communicating matters of public knowledge, rather than restricting the disclosure of confidential information only.

Update:

1/7/2008 - OMDA filed a petition for review to the Texas Supreme Court.

06/06/2008 - OMDA's petition to the Texas Supreme Court was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. (scroll down or Ctrl+F "porcari")

Starting in 2004, the Phoenix New Times published a number of articles critical of Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. In one article published on its website in 2004, the newspaper disclosed Arpaio's home address as part of a story raising questions about his real estate holdings.

Authorities in Maricopa County began a criminal investigation of the newspaper for violation of section 13-2401 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which makes it a felony to publish the personal information of a "peace officer" on the Internet, if the dissemination of that information poses a serious and imminent threat to officer's safety.

The New Times filed a lawsuit in federal court in Arizona seeking a declaration that section 13-2401 violates its rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The newspaper also sought an injunction barring Maricopa County law enforcement officials from investigating or prosecuting the newspaper for violation of the statute.

While this litigation was ongoing, in late August 2007, the parent company of the New Times received a grand jury subpoena issued at the request of Dennis Wilenchik, a special prosecutor hired by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to handle the criminal case against the New Times. The subpoena was extremely broad. It asked for all documents related to any articles published about Sheriff Arpaio from January 1, 2004 to the present. More surprising, it asked for extensive information about all online readers of the New Times from January 1, 2004 to the present, including IP addresses, date and time of visit, type of browser, and websites visited before coming to the New Times site.

The newspaper filed a motion to quash the subpoena in Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County. On October 18, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, the founders of the New Times, published an article on the newspaper's website entitled "Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution." The article discussed the grand jury subpoeana in detail, criticized its breadth, and detailed what the authors believed were irregularities in the prosecution's handling of the case. Significantly, Lacey and Larkin posted a PDF of the full text of the subpoena on the website along with the article.

The same day the article was published, the Maricopa County police arrested Lacey and Larkin for violating section 13-2812 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which makes it a misdemeanor criminal offense for anyone to disclose any "matter attending a grand jury proceeding."

The arrest received widespread media attention, and a storm of criticism ensued. On October 19, in the face of public outcry, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced that his office was dropping all criminal charges against the newspaper and that he had removed special prosecutor Wilenchik from the case. (A video of the County Attorney's public statement is available on the Phoenix New Times site.)

On October 19, Phoenix Newspapers Inc. and KPNX-TV filed a motion requesting the Arizona Superior Court to publicly release documents related to the grand jury investigation, presumably including the subpoena. County Attorney Thomas has announced his support for this request. On October 24, the court released the requested documents, indicating that release was appropriate in part because the New Times had reported the existence of subpeonas on October 18, and in part because other documents in the file did not need to be kept secret to protect the grand jury process and the matter was of public concern.