Monthly Archives: January 2014

Dawalt lectures Con LAW II GITLOW free Speech
These are a series of lectures for various college courses on crime, corrections, laws and so forth. It is not legal advice.

By: Phillip Dawalt

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Dawalt lectures Con LAW II GITLOW free Speech - Video

Ian Threatened With Arrest for Free Speech at New Courthouse
I was nearly arrested today at the new superior court building while doing jury nullification outreach for the first time in 2014 and also the first time at ...

By: FreeKeene

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Ian Threatened With Arrest for Free Speech at New Courthouse - Video

Student Free Speech Akin to Prison Speech in "I Heart Boobies" Case?: Atty. John Freund comments
The "I Heart Boobies" case has caught the attention of the nation and perhaps the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court. Atty. John Freund comments on whether ...

By: KingSpry21

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Student Free Speech Akin to Prison Speech in "I Heart Boobies" Case?: Atty. John Freund comments - Video

AUSTIN, Texas They say nothing on the Internet ever really goes away, but the Texas Supreme Court is considering whether defamatory postings might be worth the effort to try.

Justices on the state's highest civil court on Thursday weighed broader questions about cyberbullying, hate speech and the First Amendment while hearing a case with far lower stakes. At issue is whether a company can be forced to remove from its website damaging personal comments about a fired Austin businessman.

Lower courts already have ruled that Robert Kinney's former company, Los Angeles-based BCG Attorney Search, can't be forced to remove the comments, even if a judge or jury eventually finds it defamed Kinney on the company's website by accusing him of running a kickback scheme. That's because defamatory speech still has protections under the law.

But Kinney's attorneys told the nine-member court that it's time for Texas law to catch up with technology.

"It was a little harder to defame someone before the Internet. Now, on my cellphone, I can walk out of here and in five minutes I can say something defamatory about somebody and hit a button, and it's there worldwide," said Martin Siegel, Kinney's attorney. "And it's potentially there for perpetuity."

Anthony Ricciardelli, an attorney for BCG, said forcing the comments to be removed would "set a dangerous precedent that will have a chilling effect on speech and may lead to a slippery slope."

The court isn't expected to make a ruling for several months.

Justices asked both sides to consider more divisive cases involving cyberbullying or hate speech whether a court should be able to issue orders to stop online antagonists from harassing others, for instance, even if no defamation was present.

Siegel said it's time for Texas to join a "modern rule" of decisions in five other states where injunctions against defamatory speech have been granted. The Kentucky Supreme Court in 2010 ruled in a case that the future speech of a party could be restrained so long its original comments were ruled defamatory.

Michael Fertik, the CEO and founder of reputation.com, said the broader problem of defamation in the digital age needs to be addressed. He said people need to be "giving a fighting chance" and pointed to how publishers can be forced to remove defamatory material from books before additional printings.

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Free speech or scrub from Internet? Texas court weighs right to preserve defamatory posts

The Court of Appeals of Virginia ruled on Tuesday that Yelp has to reveal the names of reviewers who left anonymous, negative reviews of a business. Some are calling the ruling a blow to free speech. The business in question maintains that the names are critical in pursuing a defamation case against the reviewers over what it claims were false reviews from non-customers.

The business were talking about is Hadeed Carpet Cleaning in Alexandria, Virginia. It alleges that reviewers are in violation of Yelps terms of service by not being real customers.

The Circuit Court for the City of Alexandria held Yelp in contempt for not complying with a subpoena, but Yelp argued that this was a violation of the First Amendment. Some would agree considering that the business has apparently been unable to prove that it had legally and factually sufficient claims against each defendant.

Either way, the Appeals court was apparently convinced enough by Hadeeds argument.

It explains, As of October 19, 2012, Yelps website displayed seventy-five reviews about Hadeed and eight reviews about a related company, Hadeed Oriental Rug Cleaning. These reviews were posted by various Yelp users, and a number of the reviews were critical of Hadeed. Hadeed filed suit against the authors of seven specific critical reviews. In these reviews, the authors implicitly or explicitly held themselves out to be Hadeed customers. In its complaint, Hadeed alleged that it tried to match the negative reviews with its customer database but could find no record that the negative reviewers were actually Hadeed customers. Consequently, Hadeed alleged that the negative reviewers were not actual customers; instead, the Doe defendants falsely represented themselves to be customers of Hadeed. Hadeeds complaint further alleged that the negative comments were defamatory because they falsely stated that Hadeed had provided shoddy service to each reviewer.

You can find the full legal document here.

Yelp (incorporated in Delaware) also argued that the trial court erred by asserting subpoena jurisdiction over Yelp, which is a non-party, foreign corporation. The court found that the service of the subpoena on Yelps registered agent in Virginia provided jurisdiction.

The Washington Times shares a statement from a Yelp spokesperson:

We are disappointed that the Virginia Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that fails to adequately protect free speech rights on the internet, and which allows businesses to seek personal details about website users without any evidence of wrongdoing in efforts to silence online critics, Yelp spokesman Vince Sollitto said in a statement. Other states require that plaintiffs lay out actual facts before such information is allowed to be obtained, and have adopted strong protections in order to prevent online speech from being stifled by those upset with what has been said. We continue to urge Virginia to do the same.

In September, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that nineteen companies agreed to stop writing fake Yelp reviews and pay over $350,000 in fines.Yelp said at the time that it would like to work with law enforcement officials in other states to crack down on the practice.

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Court Orders Yelp To Identify Anonymous Reviewers