Are you Liable for What you Post? Better READ THIS
DoctorOfTone
Posts: 81
This is a blow to free speech since it says you better have undeniable proven facts before saying something about somebody or face huge claims for damages.
Aliases Subject of Internet Libel Case
BY CARL S. KAPLAN
Last week Judge Richard L. Williams of the federal district court in
Richmond, Va., rejected a series of motions and gave his seal of approval
to a jury's verdict that awarded $675,000 in compensatory and punitive
damages to Dr. Sam D. Graham Jr., a urologist in private practice in
Virginia and former head of the department of urology at Emory University
School of Medicine.
According to evidence presented at the trial, Dr. Graham was the subject
of statements published on a Yahoo message board accusing him of accepting
illegal kickbacks while at Emory and of leaving the school under a cloud.
The statements were written by an individual who went by the handle
"fbiinformant" and who was later discovered to be Dr. Jonathan R.
Oppenheimer, a pathologist based in Nashville.
Following a two-day trial, a jury found on October 25 that by publishing
the statements, Oppenheimer and a company that he operates were guilty of
defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In reaching
its verdict, the jury necessarily concluded that statements penned by
Oppenheimer were false and harmful to Graham's reputation and that
Oppenheimer acted negligently and even recklessly in publishing them.
Oppenheimer, a non-lawyer who represented himself at trial, said in an
interview that he plans to appeal the judgment. He acknowledged that the
factual statements he made are false, but he said that he believed they
were true when he wrote them. "It's going to ruin me" if the award is not
overturned, he said.
Lawyers say the case may well represent the first time in the United
States that a jury imposed a substantial libel award against a defendant
who published an anonymous Internet message.
The case also serves as an important reminder, experts said, that the
rules of libel apply online much as they do in the world of newspapers and
magazines.
"What this case demonstrates is that people can be held accountable for
what they post on the Net even though they posted anonymously," said
Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, a professor at the University of Florida's Levin
College of Law and an expert on defamation in cyberspace.
"People need to understand that if they make an allegation of fact about
someone online that is damaging to that person's reputation, they better
make sure that statement is true and based on proven facts; otherwise they can be held liable for libel," she added.
According to legal papers filed in the case, Dr. Graham resigned from his
post at Emory in July 1998 to move to Richmond and enter private practice.
Several months after his exit, on Feb. 7, 1999, the following message
appeared on a Yahoo message board devoted to information about Urocor
Inc., which operates a pathology lab in Oklahoma City:
"Sam Graham, MD used to be the Department Chair of Urology at Emory Clinic
in Atlanta. UroCor decided to underbid the Emory Pathology Department for
pathology services and give Graham a cut of the money it got from doing
the pathology. This worked well until the poor SOB got caught with his
hand in the cookie jar. Poor guy had to resign his prestigious position."
The message was signed by "fbiinformant."
Graham was "absolutely shocked" when a friend referred him to the Yahoo
posting, he recalled in a recent interview. "This whole thing where you
can impugn somebody's honor and think you can get away with it because
you're doing it anonymously is a bunch of baloney," he said. Eventually he
filed suit.
Graham's lawyers first tried to unmask the anonymous author by serving
legal papers on Yahoo and Internet service providers, but those efforts
were more than satisfactory, said D. Alan Rudlin, one of Graham's attorneys. After
seven months of investigation, the legal team connected Oppenheimer's name
to the pseudonym through deposition transcripts stemming from a previous,
unrelated lawsuit, Rudlin said. In one of those transcripts, Oppenheimer,
who once worked at Urocor, testified that he had posted under the name
"fbiinformant." Oppenheimer was fired from Urocor in 1997, Rudlin said.
Before the trial, Oppenheimer conceded that he wrote the February 7
message, that it pertained to Dr. Graham and that Dr. Graham was not
forced to resign from Emory. During trial, Graham's attorneys presented
evidence that the statements written by Oppenheimer regarding the illegal
kickbacks were false and defamatory. They also sought to demonstrate that
Oppenheimber acted unreasonably when he posted the information after
hearing it from a third party, without making sufficient efforts to check
its veracity.
Last week, while denying the defendants' motions for a dismissal of the
charges or a new trial, Judge Williams said in court that the messages
were "despicable," according to Rudlin.
The jury "very much did not like the defendant and very much liked Doctor
Graham," said William V. Riggenbach, a lawyer who represented
Oppenheimer's company, Prost-Data Inc., at the trial. He added that the
gist of the defense, which the jury rejected, was that Oppenheimer's
reliance on the false information relayed to him by the third party was
neither negligent nor reckless, in light of Oppenheimer's belief that the
information was true.
Kurt A. Wimmer, a media lawyer at Covington & Burling, a law firm based in
Washington, D.C., said that the Graham case was "rather unremarkable"
aside from the fact that it's the first Net libel case of its kind. "There
are a lot of areas in law where the offline and online worlds are treated
similarly," he said. "Libel is one of those. If you libel someone
anonymously and your ID is discovered, the law of libel is going to apply.
It's that way on the Net and that way off the Net."
Nor is anonymous speech, uttered on a wild and woolly online message
board, subject to lesser standards of care than anonymous speech published
in a newspaper, added Robert M. O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson
Center for the Protection of Free Expression and a law professor at the
University of Virginia. "I don't think in this respect that the medium
makes the slightest difference," he said.
There's one big difference between defamatory speech in the online and
offline worlds, however, said Professor Lidsky of the University of
Florida. On the Internet, the ordinary person is a publisher, and thus the
possibility that a small fry can become a defamation defendant is
magnified.
After all, if the Internet didn't exist, the defendant in the Graham case
may have simply talked around a water cooler and no suit would have been
brought, Lidsky explained. The conversation would have been "beneath
notice," she said. But on the Internet, people who engage in "water cooler
gossip" must appreciate that there is a possibility that they could be
subject to a lawsuit if they defame someone, she said.
Aliases Subject of Internet Libel Case
BY CARL S. KAPLAN
Last week Judge Richard L. Williams of the federal district court in
Richmond, Va., rejected a series of motions and gave his seal of approval
to a jury's verdict that awarded $675,000 in compensatory and punitive
damages to Dr. Sam D. Graham Jr., a urologist in private practice in
Virginia and former head of the department of urology at Emory University
School of Medicine.
According to evidence presented at the trial, Dr. Graham was the subject
of statements published on a Yahoo message board accusing him of accepting
illegal kickbacks while at Emory and of leaving the school under a cloud.
The statements were written by an individual who went by the handle
"fbiinformant" and who was later discovered to be Dr. Jonathan R.
Oppenheimer, a pathologist based in Nashville.
Following a two-day trial, a jury found on October 25 that by publishing
the statements, Oppenheimer and a company that he operates were guilty of
defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In reaching
its verdict, the jury necessarily concluded that statements penned by
Oppenheimer were false and harmful to Graham's reputation and that
Oppenheimer acted negligently and even recklessly in publishing them.
Oppenheimer, a non-lawyer who represented himself at trial, said in an
interview that he plans to appeal the judgment. He acknowledged that the
factual statements he made are false, but he said that he believed they
were true when he wrote them. "It's going to ruin me" if the award is not
overturned, he said.
Lawyers say the case may well represent the first time in the United
States that a jury imposed a substantial libel award against a defendant
who published an anonymous Internet message.
The case also serves as an important reminder, experts said, that the
rules of libel apply online much as they do in the world of newspapers and
magazines.
"What this case demonstrates is that people can be held accountable for
what they post on the Net even though they posted anonymously," said
Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, a professor at the University of Florida's Levin
College of Law and an expert on defamation in cyberspace.
"People need to understand that if they make an allegation of fact about
someone online that is damaging to that person's reputation, they better
make sure that statement is true and based on proven facts; otherwise they can be held liable for libel," she added.
According to legal papers filed in the case, Dr. Graham resigned from his
post at Emory in July 1998 to move to Richmond and enter private practice.
Several months after his exit, on Feb. 7, 1999, the following message
appeared on a Yahoo message board devoted to information about Urocor
Inc., which operates a pathology lab in Oklahoma City:
"Sam Graham, MD used to be the Department Chair of Urology at Emory Clinic
in Atlanta. UroCor decided to underbid the Emory Pathology Department for
pathology services and give Graham a cut of the money it got from doing
the pathology. This worked well until the poor SOB got caught with his
hand in the cookie jar. Poor guy had to resign his prestigious position."
The message was signed by "fbiinformant."
Graham was "absolutely shocked" when a friend referred him to the Yahoo
posting, he recalled in a recent interview. "This whole thing where you
can impugn somebody's honor and think you can get away with it because
you're doing it anonymously is a bunch of baloney," he said. Eventually he
filed suit.
Graham's lawyers first tried to unmask the anonymous author by serving
legal papers on Yahoo and Internet service providers, but those efforts
were more than satisfactory, said D. Alan Rudlin, one of Graham's attorneys. After
seven months of investigation, the legal team connected Oppenheimer's name
to the pseudonym through deposition transcripts stemming from a previous,
unrelated lawsuit, Rudlin said. In one of those transcripts, Oppenheimer,
who once worked at Urocor, testified that he had posted under the name
"fbiinformant." Oppenheimer was fired from Urocor in 1997, Rudlin said.
Before the trial, Oppenheimer conceded that he wrote the February 7
message, that it pertained to Dr. Graham and that Dr. Graham was not
forced to resign from Emory. During trial, Graham's attorneys presented
evidence that the statements written by Oppenheimer regarding the illegal
kickbacks were false and defamatory. They also sought to demonstrate that
Oppenheimber acted unreasonably when he posted the information after
hearing it from a third party, without making sufficient efforts to check
its veracity.
Last week, while denying the defendants' motions for a dismissal of the
charges or a new trial, Judge Williams said in court that the messages
were "despicable," according to Rudlin.
The jury "very much did not like the defendant and very much liked Doctor
Graham," said William V. Riggenbach, a lawyer who represented
Oppenheimer's company, Prost-Data Inc., at the trial. He added that the
gist of the defense, which the jury rejected, was that Oppenheimer's
reliance on the false information relayed to him by the third party was
neither negligent nor reckless, in light of Oppenheimer's belief that the
information was true.
Kurt A. Wimmer, a media lawyer at Covington & Burling, a law firm based in
Washington, D.C., said that the Graham case was "rather unremarkable"
aside from the fact that it's the first Net libel case of its kind. "There
are a lot of areas in law where the offline and online worlds are treated
similarly," he said. "Libel is one of those. If you libel someone
anonymously and your ID is discovered, the law of libel is going to apply.
It's that way on the Net and that way off the Net."
Nor is anonymous speech, uttered on a wild and woolly online message
board, subject to lesser standards of care than anonymous speech published
in a newspaper, added Robert M. O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson
Center for the Protection of Free Expression and a law professor at the
University of Virginia. "I don't think in this respect that the medium
makes the slightest difference," he said.
There's one big difference between defamatory speech in the online and
offline worlds, however, said Professor Lidsky of the University of
Florida. On the Internet, the ordinary person is a publisher, and thus the
possibility that a small fry can become a defamation defendant is
magnified.
After all, if the Internet didn't exist, the defendant in the Graham case
may have simply talked around a water cooler and no suit would have been
brought, Lidsky explained. The conversation would have been "beneath
notice," she said. But on the Internet, people who engage in "water cooler
gossip" must appreciate that there is a possibility that they could be
subject to a lawsuit if they defame someone, she said.
The D.O.T.
0
Comments
Frank
Not sure how I feel about that. I guess if it were me I would want that someone had the proof to back up any statements that were damaging to me in some way, particularly if they were financially damaging.
Should people be able to say anything they wish about anyone else anonymously on the internet? I guess that depends in my opinion on what they are saying.
This makes my head hurt....
But, IMHO someone should not be able to say something damaging to another person anonymously on the net that they couldn't legally say in person... right?
<< <i>Oppenheimer, a non-lawyer who represented himself at trial, said in an
interview that he plans to appeal the judgment. >>
I'm not sure we can place much stock in a decision leveled against an obvious fool who clearly did that of which he was accused.
Russ, NCNE
I believe that, based on many things which are said on THIS forum about others here (and elsewhere), DoctorOfTone's post is as much on topic for this forum, as are many others which appear here.
Carol seems to be active here today, so, perhaps she can decide for us.
I'm not a Lawyer (if I was, I'd buy out Anaconda)
Slander: Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
ma·lign
To make evil, harmful, and often untrue statements about; speak evil of.
adj.
Evil in disposition, nature, or intent.
Evil in influence; injurious.
Having or showing malice or ill will; malevo
Synonyms: malign, defame, traduce, vilify, asperse, slander, calumniate, libel
These verbs mean to make evil, harmful, often untrue statements about another. Malign stresses malicious intent: “Have I not taken your part when you were maligned?” (Thackeray). Defame suggests damage to reputation through misrepresentation: The plaintiff had been defamed and had legitimate grounds for a lawsuit. Traduce connotes the resulting humiliation or disgrace: “My character was traduced by Captain Hawkins... even the ship's company cried out shame” (Frederick Marryat). Vilify pertains to open, deliberate, vicious defamation: “One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority in history is not likely to be insensible to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution” (Felix Frankfurter). To asperse is to spread unfavorable charges or insinuations against: “Who could be so base as to asperse the character of a family so harmless as ours?” (Oliver Goldsmith). Slander and calumniate apply to oral expression: He slandered his political opponent. She calumniated and ridiculed her former employer. Libel involves the communication of written or pictorial material: The celebrity sued the tabloid that libeled her.
Pardon my ignorance, but I've never heard of Carl S Kaplan, the author of this article. What was the source of the article? A newspaper, magazine or website? Inquiring minds want to know.
Mike
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
Russ, NCNE
Dan
First Place Winner of the 2005 Rampage design contest!