American Bar Association
Defending Libety, Pursuing Justice
News & Developments: September 2006
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Non-ISP Lacks Standing To Challenge Party Seeking Identity Of Internet Poster
In Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Doe, 42 Cal. Rptr. 3d 79 (Cal. App. (6th Dist.) 2006), the California Court of Appeals held that a third-party lacked standing to challenge a discovery request by asserting the First Amendment rights of anonymous posters to an Internet message board. Plaintiff, a large pharmaceutical company, brought this action for defamation and other related claims against multiple individuals after they posted allegedly defamatory remarks on Internet message boards. Plaintiff could not discover the identity of two of the defendants but was able to trace their messages to a hedge fund called Barbary Coast Capital Management, and in a deposition, the principal of that company refused to identify the posters. The trial court ordered the principal to answer the questions; Barbary Coast and the principal appealed that order.
The court noted that as computer users have embraced the apparent anonymity of the Internet, businesses who find themselves the targets of online disparagement have attempted to sue the responsible parties for defamation. To do so, they often bring third-party discovery against the Internet service provider (“ISP”) to reveal the identity of the account holder who posted the defamatory remarks. The court observed that in a typical such case, the anonymous party normally steps forward to oppose the disclosure of his or her identity, and clearly has standing to do so. Here, however, the plaintiffs sought to compel this disclosure from a non-ISP third-party, who then sought to assert the First Amendment rights of the unidentified posters to speak anonymously on the Internet. The California court of appeals held that the witness in this case had no protected interest in the matter and lacked standing to assert the First Amendment rights of the anonymous posters. Thus, the court ordered the witness to answer plaintiff’s questions. ...
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