 GrepLaw |
|
|
|
This site is a production of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Please email if you have questions, contributions, or ideas about improving this site.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Minnesota Supreme Court Vacates Internet Libel Judgment
|
|
|
|
posted by justfred
on Friday July 12, @11:21AM
from the long-distance-libel dept.
|
|
|
|
|
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Minnesota woman, Marianne Luban, who wrote an online message critical of Katherine Griffis, an Alabama academic, cannot be sued for libel in the scholar's home state. The ruling vacated an Alabama court's $25,000 default judgment against Luban, whose criticism on an Internet newsgroup devoted to Egyptology was directed at Griffis.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Minnesota Supreme Court held that "[t]he fact that messages posted to the newsgroup could have been read in Alabama, just as they could have been read anywhere in the world, cannot suffice to establish Alabama as the focal point of the defendant's conduct." Luban's refusal to attend the Alabama court sessions led to the initial default judgment.
In response to the ruling, Griffis' attorney, Peter Erlinder, stated, "We think the court simply misread the law," adding that the ruling effectively gives Minnesotans freedom "to attack people anywhere in the world" and never have to prove they were in the place where the damage was done.
Luban's attorney, John Borger, said the ruling simply extends traditional libel protections to cyberspace, and that "engaging in a general discussion to a general audience will not be enough to lead to a suit elsewhere even if the person being talked about lives in another state or country."
Check out the Washington Post for a full report.
|
|
|
|
< House Committee Hearing on Orbitz Scheduled for Next Week
| File Trading has "Commercial Purpose" >
| |
|
