Jeffrey Joyner, a California soccer coach, sued Jerry Lazzareschi, the operator of the forum Soccertalk.com, and his domain registrar Domains by Proxy, Inc., after a number of allegedly false and defamatory statements about Joyner appeared on Lazzareschi's forum site.  

Joyner coached two soccer teams for teenage girls, and in 2004 he merged the teams causing what a California appeals court called "parental unrest and heated discussion in the girls' soccer community."  The controversy over the team merger spilled onto the Internet and generated over 2000 posts on Sockertalk.com.  According to court documents, Joyner alleged that some of these posts falsely accused him of "financial improprieties," described him as "a cheater and a thief," and accused him of incompetence and "coach[ing] his . . . team . . . into the ground," among other things.  The statements were largely posted by unregistered users of the forum, but Joyner also alleged that Lazzareschi created forum thread titles and "republished the[] statements" on other websites "to lure viewers to [his] WEBSITE." 

Joyner filed suit against Lazzareschi and Soccertalk.com for defamation, negligence, negligent training/supervision, interference with contractual relations, interference with prospective economic advantage, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Joyner's complaint also contained a cause of action for fraud against Domains by Proxy for permitting Lazzareschi to obtain and register his domain name anonymously.  

The defendants moved to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP law (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16), and the trial court granted the motion.  On appeal, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, reversed, finding that the statements did not relate to a matter of public interest within the protection of the anti-SLAPP law.  After the case returned to the trial court, Lazzareschi moved for summary judgment, and the trial court granted the motion and dismissed the case against him, ruling that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230") barred Joyner's claims based on third-party content.  Joyner appealed.

The California Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that Section 230 gave Lazzareschi immunity for publishing the comments of his forum users.  The court concluded that Lazzareschi, as a website operator, qualified as the provider of an "interactive computer service" and that all of Joyner's claims treated him as a "publisher or speaker" of third-party content.  The court also ruled that Joyner's claim that Lazzareschi republished the defamatory content on other websites in order to "advertise" his forum was irrelevant because "the view that actively selected and republished information is no longer 'information provided by another information content provider' under section 230(c)(1) is groundless." 

The court also rejected Joyner's argument that, under the Ninth Circuit's opinion in Roommates.com, Lazzareschi lost his immunity by creating forum thread titles and deleting positive posts.  The court indicated that starting threads on topics of interest "is not by itself defamatory" because "positive messages about plaintiff or messages defending him could be and were posted under [the threads]."  The court also found that Joyner produced no evidence that Lazzareschi ever deleted positive messages about him. The court explained that, unlike in the Roommates.com scenario, no evidence -- let alone 'direct and palpable' evidence -- connected defendant to a posting or filtering process that was discriminatory or defamatory against plaintiff."

The case still appears to be pending against Domains by Proxy in the trial court. 

UPDATE: On 08/22/2008, the court granted Domains by Proxy Inc's motion for summary judgement. It appears that the court awarded fees to Domains by Proxy, since Domains submitted a sumary of its court costs on 09/03/2008 and scheduled an examination of judgment debtor on 09/26/2008.

On May 24, 2005, Cecilia Barnes filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! for negligently failing to remove unauthorized profiles from its Yahoo! Profiles website.  The profiles were created by Barnes' ex-boyfriend, and contained nude photos of Barnes and her work contact information.  According to the complaint, on March 29, 2005, Yahoo! contacted Barnes and assured her that they would put an end to the unauthorized profiles.  However, the complaint alleges that she continued to be harrassed by strange men.  Barnes claims that when Yahoo! contacted her, they undertook an affirmative duty of care under Oregon law, and this duty was violated when they failed to remove the profiles and prohibit them from being posted again.

On June 23, 2005, Yahoo! removed the case from the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the District of Multnomah to the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.  On November 8, 2005, the district court granted Yahoo!'s motion to dismiss the case, finding that 47 U.S.C. §230 immunizes interactive service providers, such as Yahoo!, from liability for failure to screen or remove third-party content.  The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case on October 14, 2008.

Update:

05/07/2009 - The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court's order dismissing the case.  The appellate court determined that Barnes' allegations might support a claim for promissory estoppel and held that section 230 would not preempt this claim.

05/21/09 - Yahoo! filed a petition for rehearing.  An amicus coalition consisting of Public  Citizen, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Citizen Media Law Project, and EFF filed a motion for leave to file an amicus brief supporting Yahoo!'s petition.

06/22/09 - The Ninth Circuit amended its opinion to remove section II of the opinion and to revise footnote 4.  The court denied Yahoo!'s and Barnes' requests for rehearing or rehearing en banc.

12/08/09 - The district court denied Yahoo!'s motion to dismiss Barnes' promissory estoppel claim.

Cherie Davis, mother of 2006 gold medal winner Shani Davis, the first African American speed skater to make the U.S. Olympic team, sued Google, Inc. in Illinois state court, seeking an injunction requiring the company to take down a blog post written by deceased sports blogger Sean Healy.

Healy published the disputed post in 2006 on his blog, Unknown Column, which is hosted on Google's Blogger service.  In the post, Healy repeated the claim, reported at the time by some mainstream media outlets, including The Associated Press and Chicago Tribune, that Cherie Davis had accused the U.S. Speedskating Federation of racism. (These reports are no longer available online, but The Age, an Australian news outlet, is still carrying a similar story.)  Healy subsequently died of cancer in 2007.  

In her complaint, Davis alleges that Healy's post was false and defamatory, that she cannot bring a lawsuit for damages against Healy because of his death and apparent lack of a probate estate, and that Google "would not be prejudiced by an order enjoining it from continuing to post Healy's statement on Healy's blog, as [Google] has no interest, economic or otherwise, in continuing to post Healy's statement."  Davis seeks an injunction requiring Google to take down Healy's post, as well as payment of legal expenses.

Self-published author Jeffrey Hammer sued Amazon.com in New York state court (later removed to federal court by Amazon) alleging libel, defamation, antitrust violations, breach of contract, and copyright violations, among others things.  The dispute revolved around negative reviews of Hammer's books posted on Amazon.com by reviewer Anthony Trendl and Amazon's failure to remove Trendl as a reviewer.  Before filing suit against Amazon, Hammer sued Trendl directly, but a federal court dismissed the lawsuit.  (For details, see our database entry, Hammer v. Trendl.) 

Hammer's complaint claimed that Amazon was liable for publishing Trendl's allegedly defamatory statements, that Amazon violated his copyright by displaying a graphic depicting Plaintiff's book cover, and that Amazon breached its contract with him and otherwise violated his rights by removing his books from the site and refusing to do further business with him. 

Amazon moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Hammer's allegations failed to state a claim and that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("Section 230") protected it from liability for publishing Trendl's statements. Amazon also moved the court for a permanent injunction to prevent Hammer from filing future lawsuits against it.

The court granted Amazon's motion to dismiss and partially granted its motion for a permanent injunction against Hammer.  The court ruled that Trendl's comments were statements of opinion that could not support a defamation claim.  The court dismissed the copyright claim, finding that Amazon's use of the book graphic either involved no copying, or alternatively, was authorized by Hammer.  The court found that Amazon was within its contract rights terminating its relationship with Hammer.  The court did not reach Amazon's Section 230 argument.

The court granted an injunction against Hammer preventing him from commencing any action against Amazon in federal court relating to reviews of his books or Amazon's refusal to do business with him.  

The following is a user-submitted description:

Mortgage lender Mortgage Specialists filed a petition for injunctive relief against Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, a website that reports and publishes stories concerning the US housing-finance sector.  In one story, Implode Explode covered Mortgage Specialists, a New Hampshire corporation.  As part of the story, Implode Explode posted a .pdf copy of a document it received from an anonymous source, detailing Mortgage Specialists' loan volume in recent years.  Mortgage Specialists sued Implode Explode seeking an order compelling Implode Explode to refrain from posting the document, to disclose the identity of the source of the document, to produce all other documents obtained from the same source, and to disclose the identity of an anonymous poster who commented on the article about Mortgage Specialists and allegedly made defamatory statements.

The trial court rejected Implode Explode's arguments on personal jurisdiction and on the merits, granting all of Mortgage Specialists' requests for relief.  Implode Explode has a filed a motion to stay the injunctive order pending appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.  Questions on appeal would involve: the right to publish under the New York Times standard; the protection of sources under the New Hampshire qualified reporter's privilege; the application of the test for injunctive relief where the petitioner's claims are against a third party and not the respondent; and the application of the Dendrite Test to the compelled disclosure of anonymous posters on websites.

Update:

4/7/09 - Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc. filed a notice of appeal from Justice McHugh's order.

4/14/2009 - Justice McHugh stayed most of his order pending pending appeal.

6/22/2009 - Citizen Media Law Project and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press submitted amicus brief in N.H. Supreme Court. ML-Implode filed its appellant's brief.

7/22/2009 - Mortgage Specialists filed its appellee's brief.

8/6/2009 - Implode-Explode filed its reply brief.

On February 13, 2009, Charles Novins, a New Jersey attorney, filed a lawsuit on behalf of himself and his law firm, alleging that nine individuals posted defamatory statements about him "in a world-wide forum." Novins attached to his complaint a copy of a post made to the Usenet newsgroup alt.culture.alaska, claiming that Novins employed drug addicts at his firm. Novins alleged that his firm's revenue "declined demonstrably during this period after the publication on February 13, 2008," and he is seeking "compensatory and punitive damages, plus interest, and costs of the suit."

The complaint also names Google, Inc., TSB Bearings, Inc., Databasix, Oakland Community College, and John and Jane Roes (1-100), as defendants, but no cause of action or claim is made in the complaint against any of these defendants.  According to some Usenet posts (here and here), TSB Bearings, Inc and Oakland Community College are employers of defendants Kevin A. Cannon and Vincent Lamb, respectively.  Novins' complaint also "demands judgment" against defendands ABC Corporation 1-10, XYZ Partnership 1-10, and John and Jane Doe 1-100, who the complaint states are "persons, identities unknown, who acted, assisted, and/or participated in the assault on the plaintiff."

Prior to the lawsuit, Novins sent a letter to defendant Cannon stating his intention to file a lawsuit against him, his employer, and unnamed others.  See CMLP's related database entry, Novins v. Cannon (Letter), for details. 

Update:

04/15/09 - Kevin Cannon filed an answer and cross-claims for contribution and indemnification against his co-defendants.

04/27/09 - Carl Osterwald filed an answer, cross-claims for contribution and indemnification against his co-defendants, and a counterclaim against Novins.

09/25/09 - The court granted Cannon and Osterwald's motion to dismiss without prejudice for failing to answer interrogatories. 

10/20/09 - The case was removed to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

04/22/10 -  Novins voluntarily dismissed the action with prejudice as to Kevin Michael Fries and Rhonda Lea Kirk Fries.

04/27/10 -  The court granted the motion of defendants Lamb and Osterwald for judgment on the pleadings, relying on Section 230. The court ordered that defendants Kelso, Young, Mather, Monaghan, Google Inc., TSB Bearings, Databasix, Oakland Community College, Lamb, and Osterwald are terminated as parties in the action, leaving only Cannon.