Judge Tosses Woman's Lawsuit Brought Against Google Because A Blogger Said Mean Things About Her
from the SUE-BETTER dept
Because even some lawyers can't seem to understand the legalities of Section 230 of the CDA or third-party liability, the courts are frequently burdened with stupid defamation lawsuits that can't survive a motion to dismiss. DC lawyer Harry J. Jordan lobbed one of these lawsuits into court late last year on behalf of Dawn Bennett, who felt she was defamed by a blog run by Scott Pierson, an SEO specialist who apparently failed to make Bennett's less-than-flattering history with the SEC disappear.
While there may have been a legitimate complaint against Pierson for some of the statements he made, Jordan and Bennett formed a legal suicide pact and decided to sue Google, which did nothing but provide hosting for the blog. The deadly duo pursued this theory in an attempt to hold Google responsible for something a user said:
As Google was aware of plaintiffs’ complaints that Pierson’s blog was factually false and a malicious vendetta against them and meant to cause crippling financial damages, it is therefore equally responsible and liable for the damages plaintiffs’ have suffered.
It doesn't matter whether Google was aware or not. Short of a court order, Google has no responsibility to kill off a blog simply because someone else doesn't like its contents. Bennett's lawyer appeared to be completely unfamiliar with Section 230 because it's not even addressed in the complaint. It does, however, get discussed in the court's dismissal of the case [PDF link], as quoted by Eric Goldman.
To salvage their claim, Plaintiffs attempt to argue that a novel issue is presented in this case which requires the court to deny the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs state “[b]ut what courts have not fully addressed is where a service provider, such as Google, adopts definitive prohibitions regarding the content of third party user material, and does not enforce them … [what is] the impact of such failure on Section 203(e) immunity.” Simply, “… does it create such an obligation for itself if it adopts guidelines of what it deems objectionable content and fails to follow through by enforcing such standards?” The answer is “no,” and thus Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss must still be granted. See Klayman, 753 F.3d at 1359–60 (discussing that the CDA bars claims arguing that service providers must be held to a heightened duty of care based on adoption of any statements allocating rights and responsibilities between interactive computer services and their users). “It would be impossible for service providers to screen each of their millions of postings for possible problems.” Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 331 (4th Cir. 1997). Furthermore, holding Google liable for establishing standards and guidelines would ultimately create a powerful disincentive for service providers to establish any standards or ever decide to remove objectionable content, which the CDA was enacted to prevent.
It's an old argument, but it doesn't make it any less ridiculous. The plaintiff tried to convince the court that Google taking any actions at all to moderate content it hosts makes its legally liable for anything found defamatory. The final sentence of this quote makes it clear any ruling finding moderation efforts by third parties somehow erases their Section 230 protections would only make things worse by forcing every platform provider to take an entirely hands-off approach to user-generated content.
This is basic Section 230 stuff, as attorney Harry Jordan should know. But as we've seen before, even lawyers providing education classes for other lawyers don't seem to have a firm understanding of Section 230 protections, which is why this sort of thing happens far more often than it should. A person representing himself may not fully understand the intricacies of the CDA, but lawyers definitely should. Otherwise, this sort of embarrassment awaits them in court, and they'll have inverted the old saying by making it possible for someone to retain counsel, but still have a fool for a lawyer.
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Filed Under: blogs, cda 230, dawn bennett, defamation, first amendment, free speech, harry jordan, scott pierson, section 230
Companies: google
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Short of a court order...
Although you say, "Short of a court order, Google has no responsibility to kill off a blog simply because someone else doesn't like its contents," Google has no obligation even if the court issues an order against the blogger, because section 230 makes it immune even from injunctive relief.Although Google typically responds in that sort of situation, that is a matter of its discretion. At least for now: that is the issue before the California Supreme Court in Hassell v. Bird
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You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
I'll have to know more than Techdirt's biased for Google view... However, Google is subject to over-arching law, even to a district court in the wilds of British Columbia, among the lumberjacks.
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
First of all, it's the District of Columbia, not British Columbia. Second, Canada doesn't have district courts.
I'm beginning to understand why all these idiots refuse to register a handle....
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
I seriously doubt it.
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Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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"...factually false and a malicious vendetta..."
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
Consider yourself "informed" about your post.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
But it's common that people posting anonymously are here to troll or post (intentionally?) wrong information. Anonymous posts should always be view with suspicion.
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
This is a very old rule, and was well known to the framers. It really has to be this way: the common law is a collection of rules slowly developed by courts through centuries of decisions of lawsuits in which earlier decisions were used as precedents for later decisions. Most importantly, courts had to develop it for lack of guidance from legislative bodies.
But where a legislature has made its will known, in accordance with the constitution, that is superior to common law, because to act otherwise would be profoundly undemocratic.
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Short of a court order...
Although Google typically responds in that sort of situation, that is a matter of its discretion. At least for now: that is the issue before the California Supreme Court in Hassell v. Bird
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Seriously, Harry: you had one job!
Blithely ignoring relevant statute (as seems to have happened here) is flat out negligent. It's a failure to represent their client's interests, and there should be (financial and/or professional) consequences for that.
I guess I'll just have to settle for the (admittedly more amusing) consequences that come with internet infamy.
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
You can "inform" people with contrary positions to something all day. They are in no way obligated to even pay attention.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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No good options
I'm not sure if this is more a Steve Dallas lawsuit, a lawyer that screwed up one of the core aspects of their job, 'knowing what the law says', or a lawyer that knew that the law didn't say what they wanted it to say and filed under the hope that the judge wouldn't know what it said.
None of these are exactly flattering options.
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Re:
Instead they wanted to drag Google into their prune-fueled poo-throwing fight.
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
Common law is the body of built-up traditions and legal philosophies that form the basis for the United States legal system. Statutes are formally written/codified laws. Formal laws are superior to traditions.
Oh, and British Columbia is a province in western Canada. DC is the District of Columbia, the capital city of the United States of America. Since the story is about events in the USA, Canada is irrelevant.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: "...factually false and a malicious vendetta..."
You can't defame people by speaking demonstrable truth about them.
Some individuals might disagree...
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Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
That's why I don't mind people "feeding" the trolls so much and sometimes do it myself. It's educational, and if I tire of them the community usually flag which conversations are worth skipping.
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Her only mistakes: She picked the wrong lawyer and the wrong court
There are plenty of judges around the world who appear to see the Internet as a threat to humankind that needs to be destroyed, whatever the letter of the law says. And, just in case the judges don't play ball, there are enough politician s willing to change the law or, worse, "encourage" service providers to "voluntary" censor the internet in the interest of whatever private party pays them some money.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
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The only way these kinds of lawsuits will stop is if the courts start penalizing the lawyers who should know better. It's like I say every time one of these stories comes up:
1) The lawyer doesn't know about copyright law and doesn't know he doesn't have a case against Google.
2) He *does* know copyright law and he *does* know he doesn't have a case against Google, but ignores it and files a case anyway because the client paid him to.
I would think either option would be an ethics violation and the lawyer should be penalized.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You keep omitting that statute is "mere statute", not the whole of the law.
Says the anonymous poster.
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