In December 2009, Apex Technology Group, Inc. and its principal Sarvesh Kumar Dharayan filed a lawsuit for defamation against John Does 1-10 and ABC Corporations 1-10 in New Jersey state court.  On December 3, 2009, Apex and Dharayan filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, seeking an injunction ordering the websites www.endH1B.com, www.itgrunt.com, and www.guestworkerfraud.com to remove certain forum postings about Apex and Dharayan that the plaintiffs claim are defamatory.  According to plaintiffs' motion, the postings include allegations that Apex "employees don't receive their salary at the end of the month. . . . [the salary] is usually received @ a random date in the following month, provided you are lucky," and that "once you file/transfer your H1B to them you more or less become their slave and you will get entangled in thier [sic] web of lies and legal documents."

On December 23, 2009, the court issued an order directing the websites' upstream hosts to disable access to the websites, and ordering Facebook, Yahoo! and Comcast to disclose the identity of the individual behind two email addresses associated with www.endH1b.com that plaintiffs alleged had included defamatory postings in an email newsletter.

Update:

6/25/2010 - Accordng to one of the defendants, the court granted his motion to dismiss the complaint and lift the court's Dec. 23, 2009 order.

On November 19, 2009, Thomas DeRosa, Chairman of the Forward Township Board of Supervisors, filed a complaint in the Court of Common Pleas for Allegheny County against two Doe defendants, asserting claims for defamation. 

According to news reports from the Pittsburg Tribune-Review, the allegations are based on a series of anonymous posts made on the Elizabeth Area Discussion Board, hosted by the website elizabethboro.com. Also according to the Tribune-Review, the posts at issue alleged that DeRosa hired family members to perform work on a recently completed bridge repair project in the Township, and call DeRosa a liar.

On November 24, 2009, the court granted DeRosa's motion to seek discovery from Richard S. Rattanni, the operator of the elizabethboro.com website, in order to identify the posters of the allegedly defamatory comments.  On January 6, 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a motion for protective order seeking to squash the subpoena on behalf of Rattanni.

Update:

03/03/10 - The court held a hearing on Rattanni's motion to quash.  According to one press account, the court determined that Rattanni had standing to assert the First Amendment rights of his readers.

 

In December 2009, counsel for Demi Moore sent a demand letter to Anna Holmes, Editor-In-Chief of Jezebel.com, in regard to a Jezebel post from November that speculated about whether Moore's cover photo for W Magazine had been photoshopped because of an extremely skinny looking left hip. 

The letter asserted that the post defamed Ms. Moore by suggesting that she "secretly uses extraordinary artificial means to alter her appearance," and by insinuating that Ms. Moore had been untruthful in informing people that the image accurately reflected her body and hip. The letter also enclosed supporting letters from W's Creative Director Dennis Freedman and from Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, the photographers who took the photo. Freedman's letter stated that "no one at the magazine did any retouching of the image of Demi Moore," and the photographers' letter said "there was ABSOLUTELY no retouching on her lips or waist or legs!!"

Moore's letter demanded an apology and retraction, and that Jezebel.com remove all false and defamatory statements about Ms. Moore or the photo from the website.  The letter also warned: "Confidential Legal Notice, Publication or Dissemination Is Prohibited." 

In response, Jezebel.com posted the letter and wrote a follow-up piece on the situation.  No photos or statements were removed, but Holmes did publish an apology, of sorts:

That said, we would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize if we cast aspersions on, or in any way hurt the feelings of Ms. Moore's left hip, waist, or legs. Our only intention was to call attention to distorted and disturbing-looking magazine covers... and the editors, photographers, art directors and retouchers who commission and create them.

Moore's counsel sent a nearly identical letter to Boing Boing and fashion photography blogger Anthony Citrano.

In July 2009, Marc Castaldi, a real estate developer, brought a defamation lawsuit in New York state court against Goetz Fitzpatrick, LLP, after he discovered LegalLawComplaints.com (no longer available), which linked to documents related to legal claims involving Castaldi or his business. Goetz Fitzpatrick is a law firm that represented Matthew and Helene Byrnes against Castaldi in a different case regarding a real estate development matter.

Castaldi's complaint alleged that the Byrnes funded the creation of the website and claimed that the unfairly selective nature of the documents was intended to harm his business. It also accused the firm of tortious interference with Castaldi's prospective business and asked for an injunction to remove the website and for damages.

The website has since been removed, but the lawsuit is still pending.

A Kentucky college student who was kicked out of a mall for wearing a short dress issued a subpoena to the Richmond Register seeking the identity of an anonymous poster on the newspaper's website.  The subpoena was issued in connection with a case filed in Kentucky state court against the anonymous commenter for allegedly posting a defamatory comment about her on the Richmond Register's site on Aug. 13, 2008, under a story about the mall incident. According to the complaint, the commenter, identified only as 12bme, claimed Clem was kicked out because she exposed herself to another woman and her children. 

The newspaper subsequently deleted the comment and banned 12bme from the site for violating the site's terms of service. According to the Student Press Law Center, the newspaper opposed Clem's subpoena, claiming that the identity of the commenter  should fall under the Kentucky's reporter shield law because a Register reporter wrote an article about the lawsuit, which mentioned the comment.

Counsel for Route 60 Hyundai, a car dealership in Florida, sent a demand letter to Thomas Alascio after he posted critical comments about the dealership on Twitter and Facebook.  The letter accused Alascio of defaming the company and demanded that he cease and desist from making futher defamatory comments and take all steps necessary to remove comments about Route 60 from the Internet.

Alascio published a series of comments over a two-week period in October 2009 after a dispute with a Route 60 employee. His tweets took the form of a running joke harping on Route 60's alleged inadequacies, saying that Route 60 is "the worst car dealership on the planet," that it "sucks," and that its service "stinks," among other things.

After receiving the demand letter, Alascio retained Marc Randazza as counsel, and Randazza sent a response letter disputing the legal and factual sufficiency of Route 60's claims.  In particular, Randazza argued that all of Alascio's alleged statements were statements of opinion or rhetorical hyperbole, which are not capble of supporting a defamation action.  In addition, Randazza warned that his client would pursue sanctions and file a counterclaim for abuse of process if Route 60 filed a complaint.  

James Carabelli, chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, sued The Michigan Messenger, a news site owned by the Center for Independent Media, for defamation in Michigan state court in October 2008. The lawsuit revolves around a September 10, 2008 article entitled "Lose your house, lose your vote," written by staff reporter Eartha Jane Melzer. The lawsuit also named as defendants Melzer, Jefferson Morley, editorial director of the website, and David Bennahum, President and CEO of the Center for Independent Media.

Melzer's article discussed alleged plans on the part of Republican officials in Michigan to challenge voters based on lists of home foreclosures. It attributed the following quote to Carabelli: "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses." Carabelli denies having made this statement and the existence of any such plans. The article drew national attention and spurred a lawsuit by the Obama campaign against the Michigan Republican Party, which subsequently settled.

The Michigan Messenger stands behind the accuracy of the quotation. After the suit was filed, Jefferson Morely told the First Amendment Center:

We've reviewed Eartha's phone records and e-mails to recreate what Eartha reported and how she did it. . . . This review of the record leaves no doubt that the conversation with Mr. Carabelli took place, that the question of voter challenges was discussed, that Mr. Carabelli said what he said, that Eartha reported those comments immediately and accurately to her editors, and then to readers.

Doug Preisse, an Ohio G.O.P. official, also challenged the accuracy of remarks attributed to him in Melzer's article. The website issued a clarification regarding Preisse's comments on September 19.

Update:

01/13/2009 - Judge ordered dismissal of the case for non-service. 

Dale Abshire filed a lawsuit in a Texas state court against David Pearl after Pearl posted a series of allegedly defamatory responses on the Yahoo! Finance AXA Internet message board in response to Abshire's posts. According to the appellate decision in the case, Pearl's post cited sexual harassment as a reason for Abshire's termination from his previous employment.

Pearl moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the court had no personal jurisdiction over him because he resided in New York and had no ties with Texas other than mentioning it in his message board posting.  The trial court denied the motion, and Pearl appealed.

A Texas appellate court reversed the lower court decision and dismissed the case, ruling that Pearl had not "purposefully availed" himself of the privilege of conducting activities in Texas. Rather, the court found that "Pearl's internet connections with Texas were in fortuitous in response to the postings of a Texas resident, Abshire."