Barrett v. Rosenthal

Last updated

Barrett v. Rosenthal
Seal of the Supreme Court of California.svg
Decided November 20, 2006
Full case nameStephen J. Barrett et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants v. Ilena Rosenthal, Defendant and Respondent
Citation(s)40 Cal.4th 33, 146 P.3d 510, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55
Court membership
Chief JusticeGeorge
Associate JusticesKennard, Baxter, Werdegar, Chin, Moreno, Corrigan
Case opinions
MajorityCorrigan, joined by George, Kennard, Baxter, Werdegar, Chin, Moreno
ConcurrenceMoreno

Barrett v. Rosenthal, 40 Cal.4th 33 (2006), [1] was a California Supreme Court case concerning online defamation. The case resolved a defamation claim brought by Stephen Barrett, Terry Polevoy, and attorney Christopher Grell against Ilena Rosenthal and several others. Barrett and others alleged that the defendants had republished libelous information about them on the internet. In a unanimous decision, the court held that Rosenthal was a "user of interactive computer services" and therefore immune from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Contents

The California Supreme Court reversed a judgment by the California Court of Appeals, First District, which would have allowed a trial on one of the defamation claims. [2] The lower court's decision was the first opinion to break from Zeran v. America Online, Inc. by holding that Section 230 immunity was not absolute for common law distributors. In reversing the Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court reaffirmed Zeran and directed that all claims against the defendants be dismissed.

Factual background

The case concerns an e-mail sent by Tim Bolen, a publicist for alternative medicine practitioners. [3] While working for Hulda Clark, Bolen distributed a missive online message that attacked Stephen Barrett and Terry Polevoy, medical doctors who publicly criticize what they consider quackery. [3] Among other things, Bolen's letter accused Polevoy of stalking a Canadian radio reporter and preventing her from airing a show about alternative medicine. [3]

One of the people who came across Bolen's letter was Ilena Rosenthal, who runs an Internet-based support group for women who have medical problems, which they believe to be caused by breast implants. Rosenthal reposted Bolen's letter on two alternative medicine newsgroups. [3] Barrett contacted her, claiming that the letter was libelous and threatening a lawsuit if she did not remove it. Rosenthal subsequently re-posted Bolen's letter, with a copy of Barrett's threat. [3]

Lower court proceedings

Stephen Barrett, Terry Polevoy, and attorney Christopher Grell filed suit against Clark, Bolen, Rosenthal, and 100 John Doe defendants in November 2000 before Alameda County Superior Court Judge James A. Richman. The case was originally captioned Barrett v. Clark. The defendants were accused of libel and conspiracy to libel, for publishing or republishing allegedly defamatory statements on the internet. [4]

Rosenthal was represented by an attorney from the California Anti-SLAPP Project. [3] Rosenthal moved to be stricken from the suit, citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and California's Anti-SLAPP statute. It was uncontested that Rosenthal had published or republished the e-mail on the internet. [5]

The trial court granted her motion, effectively dropping all of the claims against Rosenthal. [5] In an unusually long 27-page written opinion, Judge Richman dismissed the case (against Rosenthal only) under the California Special motion to strike (an anti-SLAPP statute), which is intended to stop lawsuits that are "brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for redress of grievances." [3] [5] The court further ordered that all three plaintiffs pay Rosenthal's attorney's fees. [6]

The appellate court upheld the dismissal against Grell and Barrett. Still, it vacated the decision as against Polevoy. [6] The court held that Section 230 did not protect Rosenthal for one statement she had reposted on two newsgroups regarding Polevoy's alleged "stalking" of a Canadian talk show host. [4] The court ruled that Rosenthal, as a "distributor," could be held liable under Section 230 for content republished after receiving notice of a potentially defamatory statement, just as vendors of traditional media can be. [6]

Rosenthal petitioned the California Supreme Court to hear the case, and the court granted her petition for review in April 2004. [7] [8]

California Supreme Court decision

The California Supreme Court overturned the lower court in November 2006, in a landmark decision that is the first to interpret Section 230 defamation immunity as providing immunity to an individual internet "user" who is not a provider. [1] [9] The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a number of internet corporations — including Google, Yahoo!, and AOL — filed briefs on behalf of the defendant, arguing that only the originator of a defamatory statement published on the internet could be held liable. [4] [9] [10] [11]

In the majority opinion, Justice Corrigan observed that the plain language of Section 230 shows that "Congress did not intend for an internet user to be treated differently than an internet provider." [1] Both had immunity from liability for the republication of defamatory content on the internet. [12]

The court agreed that "subjecting Internet service providers and users to defamation liability would tend to chill online speech." [1] [13] (citing Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (4th Cir. 1997) 129 F.3d 327, 331-333), which ruled that Internet users – unlike publishers – are not liable for posting online content. [4] Moreover, the court agreed with Rosenthal in the interpretation of congressional intent:

The congressional intent of fostering free speech on the internet supported the extension of Section 230 immunity to active individual users. It is they who provide much of the 'diversity of political discourse,' the pursuit of 'opportunities for cultural development,' and the exploration of 'myriad avenues for intellectual activity' that the statute was meant to protect.

However, the court also acknowledged that blanket immunity for the redistribution of defamatory statements on the Internet has "disturbing implications." [14] Although plaintiffs are free under Section 230 to sue the originator of a defamatory Internet publication, [15] "any further expansion of liability must await Congressional action." [16]

In a concurring opinion, Justice Carlos Moreno also suggested that immunity would not extend to an online publisher or distributor who conspires to defame an original content provider. However, in this case, there was provided no proof of a conspiracy to defame. [1]

Because Barrett and Polevoy were public figures, to pursue their defamation claims, they would have had to show by clear and convincing evidence that Rosenthal republished Bolen's statements with malice. While the court affirmed the lower court's dismissal of Barrett's claims (finding the statements in question to be non-actionable statements of opinion), the court also noted that the statements concerning Polevoy's alleged stalking may still be actionable if the plaintiff can show that Rosenthal knowingly republished a falsehood or a statement in reckless disregard of its truth. The court also affirmed the lower court's decision to award Rosenthal attorney's fees for prevailing on her anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss; however, the court directed that those fees be reduced to reflect its ruling to permit Polevoy to proceed with his libel claim. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defamation</span> Any communication that can injure a third partys reputation

Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. In the English-speaking world, the law of defamation traditionally distinguishes between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both.

Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

<i>Hill v Church of Scientology of Toronto</i> Libel case

Hill v Church of Scientology of Toronto February 20, 1995- July 20, 1995. 2 S.C.R. 1130 was a libel case against the Church of Scientology, in which the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted Ontario's libel law in relation to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In United States defamation law, actual malice is a legal requirement imposed upon public officials or public figures when they file suit for libel. Compared to other individuals who are less well known to the general public, public officials and public figures are held to a higher standard for what they must prove before they may succeed in a defamation lawsuit.

Online service provider law is a summary and case law tracking page for laws, legal decisions and issues relating to online service providers (OSPs), like the Wikipedia and Internet service providers, from the viewpoint of an OSP considering its liability and customer service issues. See Cyber law for broader coverage of the law of cyberspace.

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restrict the ability of public officials to sue for defamation. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, then not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is frequently ranked as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the modern era.

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court establishing the standard of First Amendment protection against defamation claims brought by private individuals. The Court held that, so long as they do not impose liability without fault, states are free to establish their own standards of liability for defamatory statements made about private individuals. However, the Court also ruled that if the state standard is lower than actual malice, the standard applying to public figures, then only actual damages may be awarded.

<i>Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc.</i> 1991 US District Court decision

Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., 776 F. Supp. 135, was a 1991 court decision in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York which held that Internet service providers were subject to traditional defamation law for their hosted content.

<i>Zeran v. America Online, Inc.</i> 1997 United States court case

Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, cert. denied, 524 U.S. 937 (1998), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit determined the immunity of Internet service providers for wrongs committed by their users under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Section 230(c)(1) of the CDA provides that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino, 35 Cal.4th 180 (2005) is a California Supreme Court opinion by then-Associate Justice Janice R. Brown interpreting the state's SLAPP statute. Specifically, the case holds that an appeal from a denial of an anti-SLAPP motion stays all trial court proceedings: "The perfecting of an appeal from the denial of a special motion to strike automatically stays all further trial court proceedings on the merits upon the causes of action affected by the motion...you have a right not to be dragged through the courts because you exercised your constitutional rights."

A person who is found to have published a defamatory statement may evoke a defence of innocent dissemination, which absolves them of liability provided that they had no knowledge of the defamatory nature of the statement, and that their failure to detect the defamatory content was not due to negligence. The defence, sometimes also known as "mechanical distributor", is of concern to Internet Service Providers because of their potential liability for defamatory material posted by their subscribers.

Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as the Statute of Gloucester in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). The law of libel emerged during the reign of James I (1603–1625) under Attorney General Edward Coke who started a series of libel prosecutions. Scholars frequently attribute strict English defamation law to James I's outlawing of duelling. From that time, both the criminal and civil remedies have been found in full operation.

The origins of the United States' defamation laws pre-date the American Revolution; one influential case in 1734 involved John Peter Zenger and established precedent that "The Truth" is an absolute defense against charges of libel. Though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect freedom of the press, for most of the history of the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court failed to use it to rule on libel cases. This left libel laws, based upon the traditional "Common Law" of defamation inherited from the English legal system, mixed across the states. The 1964 case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, however, radically changed the nature of libel law in the United States by establishing that public officials could win a suit for libel only when they could prove the media outlet in question knew either that the information was wholly and patently false or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not". Later Supreme Court cases barred strict liability for libel and forbade libel claims for statements that are so ridiculous as to be obviously facetious. Recent cases have added precedent on defamation law and the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian defamation law</span> Commonwealth jurisdictions

Canadian defamation law refers to defamation law as it stands in both common law and civil law jurisdictions in Canada. As with most Commonwealth jurisdictions, Canada follows English law on defamation issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Section 230</span> US federal law on website liability

In the United States, Section 230 is a section of the Communications Act of 1934 that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

A Doe subpoena is a subpoena that seeks the identity of an unknown defendant to a lawsuit. Most jurisdictions permit a plaintiff who does not yet know a defendant's identity to file suit against a placeholder defendant, using the name John Doe or Jane Doe. A plaintiff may then use the tools of the discovery process to seek the defendant's true name and amend the complaint to name the Doe defendant. A Doe subpoena is often served on an online service provider or ISP for the purpose of identifying the author of an anonymous post.

<i>Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC</i>

Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157, is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) did not apply to an interactive online operator whose questionnaire violated the Fair Housing Act. However, the court found that Roommates.com was immune under Section 230 of the CDA for the “additional comments” portion of the website. This case was the first to place a limit on the broad immunity that Section 230(c) gives to service providers that has been established under Zeran v. AOL (1997).

<i>OKroley v. Fastcase, Inc.</i>

O'Kroley v. Fastcase, Inc.,, aff'd, No. 15-6336, is a U.S. court case concerning defamation in online search results. The plaintiff, Colin O'Kroley, alleged that Google's automated snippet algorithm created a defamatory search result by falsely implying that the plaintiff had been accused of indecency with a child. The District Court granted Google's motion to dismiss the case, and found that Google had immunity from the defamation charges under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects interactive computer services from being held liable as a speaker or publisher for information provided by a third-party information content provider. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision.

Hassell v. Bird was a case heard within the California court system related to a court-ordered removal of a defamatory user review of a law firm from the Yelp website. The case, first heard in the California Court of Appeals, First District, Division Four, unanimously ruled in favor of the law firm, ordering Yelp to remove the review in 2016. Yelp refused to remove the review and appealed the decision. In July 2018, the California Supreme Court reversed the order in a closely divided 4-3 decision, stating that Yelp's position fell within Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a publisher of user material, and was not required to comply with the trial court's removal order. However, the part of the trial court's decision that ordered the reviewer to remove the defamatory review and pay a monetary judgement were left intact. The Supreme Court of the United States denied to hear the appeal, leaving the California Supreme Court's decision.

<i>Green v. America Online, Inc.</i>

Green v. America Online, Inc., 318 F.3d 465 (2003), was a case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, over the protections granted to Internet service providers from legal liability for tort offenses committed by their users.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 40 Cal.4th 33 , 146 P.3d 510, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 (Cal. Sup. Ct., November 20, 2006). Supreme Court of the State of California, Alameda County, Barrett v. Rosenthal: Court Opinion, Ct.App. 1/2 A096451.
  2. ↑ Barrett v. Rosenthal, 112 Cal. App. 4th 749; 5 Cal. Rptr. 3d 416 (Cal. App. 1st Dist., November 10, 2003). Opinion available Archived 2008-11-29 at the Wayback Machine from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kara Platoni (September 5, 2001). "War of the Words - An Oakland judge makes a precedent-setting ruling in an Internet libel case". East Bay Express . Archived from the original on March 2, 2005.
  4. 1 2 3 4 McKee, Mike (September 6, 2006). "Calif. High Court Cold to Liability in Online Speech". The Recorder. Archived from the original on March 14, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  5. 1 2 3 California Superior Court, Alameda County, Barrett v. Clark: Order Granting Defendant's Special Motion to Strike, 2001 WL 881259, 2001 Extra LEXIS 46. available online Archived 2008-07-24 at the Wayback Machine
  6. 1 2 3 4 Samson, Martin. "Stephen J. Barrett, et al. v. Ilena Rosenthal". Internet Library of Law and Court Decisions. Archived from the original on April 22, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  7. ↑ Supreme Court of the State of California, Barrett v. Clark: Petition for Review available online Archived 2008-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Sinrod, Eric J. (December 20, 2006). "How Web providers dodged a big legal bullet". CNET News. Archived from the original on October 22, 2012. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  9. 1 2 Seyfer, Jessie (November 22, 2006). "Calif. Supreme Court Shields Web Republishers". The Recorder. Archived from the original on March 14, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  10. ↑ Kravets, David (September 5, 2006). "California justices frown on Internet libel lawsuits". Associated Press. Archived from the original on March 13, 2009. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
  11. ↑ "Brief ofAmici Curiae" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 29, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  12. ↑ Woodford, Chad (2006). "The California Supreme Court Considers Web Site Immunity" (PDF). The Daily Journal.
  13. ↑ Perle, E. Gabriel; Mark A. Fischer; John Taylor Williams (2007). "Defamation and related issues". Perle & Williams on Publishing Law. Vol. 2007 Supplement (3rd ed.). Aspen Publishers Online. p. 12. ISBN   978-0-7355-0448-6.
  14. ↑ Mintz, Howard (November 21, 2006). "Justices hand victory to free speech online". San Jose Mercury News . Archived from the original on March 12, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  15. ↑ Savell, Lawrence (December 22, 2006). "Is Your Blog Exposing You to Legal Liability?". Law.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  16. ↑ Anderson, Nate (November 21, 2006). "Internet users cannot be sued for reposting defamatory statements". Ars Technica . Archived from the original on March 13, 2009. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.