Florida: Losing politician sues newspapers for libel

After losing a hotly contested battle in the Democratic primary election for the U.S. Senate, a Florida businessman is preparing a lawsuit against the St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald charging they libeled him in reporting his business activities which cost him the election.  -db
The New York Times
August 31, 2010
By Jeremy W. Peters [...]

Free speech: Federal court rules ex- police chef’s rights violated

The 10th Circuit Appeals Court ruled that the city manager in Laramie, Wyoming violated a police chief’s free speech rights since her motivation in firing him was to punish him for filing a defamation lawsuit. -db
Courthouse News Service
August 30, 2010
By Nick McCann
(CN) – The city manager in Laramie, Wyo., violated a police [...]

Calif. televangelist can sue ABC for defamation, 9th Circuit says

A federal appeals court yesterday reinstated a televangelist’s defamation lawsuit claiming ABC’s “20/20” news program used a fictionalized sermon in which he portrayed himself as a wealthy braggart out of context.

August 25, 2010
By The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO —A trial court judge had earlier tossed [...]

San Bernardino: Wife of ex-sheriff ruled a private citizen in libel suit

In a multimillion-dollar libel suit against Valley Wide Newspapers, the  plaintiff,the wife of a former sheriff won a ruling that she was not a public figure, athough she had a contract with San Bernardino County to provide counseling services to sheriff’s deputies. -db
San Bernardino Sun
August 23, 2010
By Mike Cruz
A Superior Court judge ruled that the [...]

Free speech: Electronic Frontier Foundation warns against California law undermining parody

A new “E-Personation” bill now in the California legislature would make it a crime to personate someone online to “harm” that person. EFF claims that the law would severely restrict online parodies criticizing government and big corporations. -db
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Commentary
August 22, 2010
By Corynne McSherry
A bill that could undermine a new and important form [...]

ACLU turns over blogger IPs in Pa. defamation case

A civil liberties group has surrendered the Internet protocol addresses from six posts on an online message board to a local western Pennsylvania official who claims the authors posted defamatory information about him.
August 13, 2010
By The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH — The American Civil Liberties Union, [...]

Federal appeals court tosses libel suit by cat breeders against Internet service provider

The 8th Circuit dismissed a libel suit by Cozy Kittens Cattery against an Internet service provider that ran what they said were defamatory comments about their cat breeding business. -db
Online Media Daily
August 11, 2010
By Wendy Davis
A federal appellate court has upheld a ruling dismissing a libel lawsuit by cat breeders against the Internet service [...]

California state senator proposes law to outlaw malicious online impersonation

In the wake of a disturbing e-mail falsely attributed to a Silicon Valley leader, A California state senator is introducing a law to make malicious e-mail impersonations a misdemeanor. -db
San Francisco Chronicle
August 9, 2010
By Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera
Two months ago, a San Jose Mercury News reporter received a profanity-laced e-mail critical of one of her stories. More [...]

Ousted USDA employee: I’ll sue blogger

Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said yesterday that she would sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that she contends made her appear racist.

July 30, 2010
By The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director [...]

Cyberbullying case gets no traction in New York state

A New York state judge has ruled that cyberbullying does not constitute defamation and dismissed her suit against her high school classmates who wrote scurrilous statements about her on FaceBook. -db
Cyberbullying case gets no traction in New York state
Online Media Daily
July 26, 2010
By Wendy Davis
Writing that a classmate contracted a sexually transmitted disease and morphed [...]

7th Circuit holds blogger can be prosecuted for threatening juror

The federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held in late June that a blogger can be prosecuted for threatening and posting personal information about a juror who had helped convict a leader of a white supremacist organization. -SMD
Citizen Media Law Project
News
July 12, 2010
By Eric P. Robinson
An alleged white supremacist can be prosecuted under a federal [...]

Tech blogger says premature to announce death of libel

With a dearth of libel suits against leading news outlets, some say libel is dying now that multiple platforms exist for stating a case. But TechDirt’s Mike Masnick says that libel suits are alive and well directed at online suits to coerce deletion of comments. -db

TechDirt
Opinion
June 18, 2010
By Mike Masnick
A few folks have sent over [...]

Online news provider settles libel suit with motorcycle manufacturer

Calling a libel suit “trival”, Gawker Media agreed to a settlement with Confederate Motors wherein Jalopnik deleted a post saying Confederate faced so many lawsuits it couldn’t conduct business in New York.-db

Online Media Daily
June 16, 2010
By Wendy Davis

Gawker Media has settled a libel lawsuit filed against Jalopnik by deleting a post alleging that Confederate Motors [...]

U.S. appeals court deciding if high school students can parody administrators online

A Pennsylvania federal court is deciding if adolescents can be punished for ridiculing school principals online using lewd and outrageous language. -db

The Philadelphia Inquirer
June 4, 2010
By Nathan Gorenstein
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia is considering whether adolescents with home computers and lewd vocabularies can be punished for ridiculing school principals on the Internet.
Web parodies of [...]

Federal bankruptcy court finds culpable those linking to defamatory blog posts

A Texas bankruptcy judge ruled that when a defendant sent an e-mail linked to websites with defamatory statements about the business practices of a Texas mayor, the defendant could be held for defamation. -db

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
June 3, 2010
By Ellen Biltz
A federal bankruptcy court in Texas became one of the first to [...]

Attorney allowed to sue over allegedly defamatory anonymous messages on Craigslist

A California district Court of Appeal ruled that a Woodland Hills attorney could sue an anonymous poster for accusing him of committing illegal acts. The court said the posts were neither political speech nor in the public interest and did not qualify for protection under the state’s anti-SLAPP law. -db

Metropolitan News-Enterprise
June 1, 2010
By Steven M. [...]

National anti-SLAPP law under consideration in Congress

Congress is considering a national law to protect citizens against baseless defamation suits filed by business or governments to prevent criticism. The stakes are higher in the Internet era when a critical comment about an individual or business posted online can garner widespread attention. -db

The New York Times
May 31, 2010
By Dan Frosch
After a towing [...]

Investment bank loses fight to keep criticism off website

A federal judge rejected an investment firm’s claim that remarks posted online critical of their business and in particular their telemarketing calls were not only defamatory but were also trademark dilutions. The judge ruled that the remarks were protected by the First Amendment and that the firm could not hold the website operators, 800Notes and [...]

First Amendment: Federal judge protects anonymity of online critic of Pennsylvania corporation

A federal judge not only scuttled a subpoena to out an online critic of USA Technologies but also ruled that the critic’s charge that the company’s pay packages were “legalized highway robbery” was protected  speech under the First Amendment. -db

Electronic Freedom Foundation
Press Release
May 19, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge in San Francisco has quashed [...]

Expectations high for reform of British libel law

British libel reform is in the works with the government rolling out an outline for a new libel law. Questions remain about whether the law will end “libel tourism” and provide sufficient protection for journalists and other investigators. -db
Citizen Media Law Project
March 31, 2010
By Arthur Bright
The reform of British libel law has been something of [...]

New York Times settles defamation claim in Singapore

The New York Times Company settled a claim brought by leaders in the Singapore government apologizing and paying over $100,000 to the leaders. Singapore leaders have a history of bringing defamation claims for statements that would be considered protected under the First Amendment in the United States. -db
The New York Times
March 24, 2010
By Richard Pérez-Peña [...]

Student First Amendment rights get lost in school’s policing of off-campus postings on social media

A blogger from the Citizen Media Law Project argues that school authorities are over reaching in many instances in punishing students for off-campus speech. In many instances the speech has no disruptive effect on the school or falls short of creating a hostile school environment. -db

Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
March 17, 2010
By Justin Silverman

A freshman at Oak [...]

Critical book review brings French criminal libel charge

A New York University law professor has been charged with criminal libel in France for refusing to take down a book review posted on the internet. A CMLP blogger argues that this is a particularly egregious case of “libel tourism” and a threat to free speech and academic freedom. -db

Citizen Media Law Project
Opinion
March 10, 2010
By [...]

Facebook threatens to sue British newspaper over false claim about sex and teen-age girls

Facebook is concerned that its reputation was permanently damaged by a claim in the Daily Mail that seconds after 14-year-old girls posted a profile on Facebook that older men could approach them who “wanted to perform a sex act” in front of them. Daily Mail apologized for the error. -db
Guardian
March 11, 2010
By Charles Arthur
Facebook has [...]

Los Angeles: Employee union accuses district attorney of libel

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys accused the Los Angeles district attorney of committing libel in a newsletter that criticized the association. The accusation is part of an ongoing dispute over the district attorney’s alleged union-busting tactics. -db

Metropolitan News-Enterprise
March 10, 2010
By Sherri M. Okamoto
The Association of Deputy District Attorneys yesterday sent a missive to its [...]

Former teacher sues D.C. mayor and the public school chancellor for defamation

After the Washington D.C. public schools chancellor said to the media that she got rid of teachers who hit students and had sex with children in reducing the teaching force, she was sued by a teacher who claimed those statements defamed him. -db

Courthouse News Service
March 8, 2010
By Ryan Abbott
WASHINGTON, D.C. (CN) – A teacher says [...]

Man forwarding alleged defamatory e-mail not liable

A California state appeals judge ruled that a man forwarding an e-mail about a Vietnam War veteran could not be charged with defamation. -db
Courthouse News Service
March 1, 2010
By Avery Fellow

(CN) – A man who forwarded an allegedly defamatory email about a Vietnam War veteran can’t be held liable for defamation, a California appeals court ruled.
“If [...]

British lawmakers urge laws curtailing libel tourism

A British parliament committee said it is time to change the country’s liberal libel laws to discourage citizens of other countries from bringing libel suits in British courts. The committee said changes are needed to eliminate the chilling effect of libel cases on free speech. -db

Telegraph.co.uk
February 24, 2010
By Gordon Rayner
Britain’s defamation laws must be urgently [...]

Federal judge refuses to dismiss defamation claim against Dallas radio host

A U.S. district judge refused to dismiss an airport security guard’s defamation suit filed after radio personality Rickey Smiley called him “gay” on his radio show. -db

Courthouse News Service
February 22, 2010
By Leigh Sanders

DALLAS (CN) – Comedian and radio host Rickey Smiley may have defamed an airport security guard by calling him gay on “The Rickey [...]

Hurricane expert claims he was fired for criticizing Corps of Engineer’s work on New Orleans levees

A hurricane expert says he was fired by Lousiana State University because the university feared losing federal funding for the expert’s criticism of the Army Corps of Engineers mistakes that caused breaks during Hurricane Katrina in the levees protecting New Orleans. -db

Courthouse News Service
February 12, 2010
By Sabrina Canfield

BATON ROUGE (CN) – A hurricane expert claims [...]

Michael Jackson’s dermatologist fights anti-SLAPP to sustain defamation suit against plastic surgeon

Michael Jackson’s dermatologist is fighting an anti-SLAPP motion to keep his lawsuit going against a plastic surgeon he says defamed him for suggesting that he was instrumental in providing the medication that killed the singer. -db
The Los Angeles Wave
February 2, 2010
By Wire Services

A dermatologist who alleges a plastic surgeon defamed him by publicly implying that [...]

Best-selling author wins libel case

A federal judge in Oklahoma dismissed libel claims against author John Grisham and other writers who wrote books about the wrongful convictions of two men in a 1982 rape and murder of a cocktail waitress. The judge said the books were protected speech. -db

Courthouse News Service
February 2, 2010
By Annie Youderian
(CN) – Three public officials from [...]

Libel suit based on tweet dismissed

A Illinois state court dismissed a defamation suit against a tenant who complained by tweet to 20 of her friends that her apartment was moldy. The judge ruled that the tweet was too vague to qualify as libel. -DB

Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
January 21, 2010
By Sam Bayard

Andrew Wang of Chicago Breaking News reports that an Illinois [...]

EFF: Court order to shut down websites sets dangerous precedent

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that when a New Jersey court shut down three websites allegedly running defamatory messages, it  disregarded federal law and ignored the First Amendment. -DB

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Legal Analysis
January 7, 2010
By Kurt Opsahl
Over the holidays, a New Jersey court issued an order requiring upstream providers to shut down three anti-H1-B websites [...]

Diet doctor sues Kim Kardashian over alleged libelous twitters

Observers think that Dr. Sanford Siegal has a weak case in his libel suit against celebrity Kim Kardashian. Siegal created the “Cookie Diet” and subsequently posted that Kim Kardashian had lost weight using the cookie diet. Siegel sued over Kardashian’s tweets that stated it was false that she was on the cookie diet and that [...]

Canadian Supreme Court creates new defense for reporters facing libel charges

The Canadian Supreme Court made it more difficult to sue for libel last month when it made two rulings that allow reporters to cover controversial stories aggressively so long as the stories are considered worthy of public interest. -DB

The Canadian Press
December 22, 2009
By Mike Blanchfield
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada offered journalists and [...]

Libelous online content not easy to remove

Even though a court found that online statements were false and defamatory, the targets of the statements, an Illinois couple and their daughter, were unable to get them removed as the authors refused a request to do so and the online site running the statements refused as well, saying they were not a party to [...]

Another court decision in favor of online site in defamation case

A federal appeals court has ruled that the site ConsumerAffairs.com is immune from liability for alleged libel posted on its site by third parties. -DB
Online Media Daily
December 30, 2009
By Wendy Davis

A federal appellate court has backed gripe site ConsumerAffairs.com in a defamation lawsuit filed by a car dealers. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled [...]

Women’s group sues Google for bloggers’ defamation

The National Association of Professional Women is suing Google and three other Web sites for publishing bloggers’ statements that say the organization is a scam. -DB

Courthouse News Service
December 31, 2009
By Barbara Leonard

MINEOLA, N.Y. – The National Association of Professional Women claims Google and three other Web sites defamed it by allowing bloggers to publish defamatory [...]

Butler University attempts to discipline blogger for criticizing administration

Facing a libel suit brought by Butler University, a student revealed his identity, but the university still wants to discipline him for criticizing the university administration’s firing of the Music department chair who is also the student’s stepmother. -DB
Tufts Daily
Commentary
December 9, 2009
By Carter Rogers
Criticizing the actions of their college or university’s administration has been a [...]

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