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Internet Giants Eye Cheerleader's Defamation Suit
May 5, 2014 by NewsFactor Network in News | Comments Off on Internet Giants Eye Cheerleader's Defamation Suit
An appeals court heard arguments Thursday over whether a gossip website should have been immune from a defamation lawsuit brought by a former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader, a case that Internet giants such as Google and Facebook are watching closely.
Nik Richie, owner of The Dirty, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, should have been granted immunity in the case under a 1996 federal law that provides broad immunity to Web sites, his attorney argued to a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Former Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones, also a former high school teacher in northern Kentucky, sued Richie in December 2012 over posts about her and her ex-husband's sexual history. Jones, 29, said the posts were untrue and caused mental anguish and embarrassment.
In July, after federal Judge William Bertelsman rejected arguments that Richie should be granted immunity, jurors found that the posts about Jones were substantially false and that Richie had acted with malice or reckless disregard by publishing them. They awarded Jones $338,000.
The posts about Jones were unrelated to a criminal case that emerged against her in March 2012 in which she was accused of having sex with a teenage former student. Jones later pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct and custodial interference as part of a plea deal that allowed her to avoid jail time but prohibited her from teaching again.
Jones and the student, then 17, say they're engaged to be married.
Richie, 35, is asking the 6th Circuit to find that Bertelsman should never have allowed Jones' lawsuit against him, which would nullify the verdict. The court could rule at any time.
In November, some of the Internet's heaviest hitters said that if Bertelsman's decision is upheld, the case has the potential to "significantly chill online speech."
"If websites are subject to liability for failing to remove third-party content...