Justia Communications Law Opinion Summaries

Munroe was an English teacher, generally considered to be effective and competent. The District granted Munroe tenure in 2010. In 2009, Munroe began a blog, using the name “Natalie M.” She did not expressly identify where she worked or lived, the name of the school or the names of her students. According to Munroe, her blog was meant to be viewed by friends that she had asked to subscribe. There were fewer than 10 subscribed readers, but no password was required for access. Most of the blog posts were unrelated to her school or work. Some postings included complaints about students, her working conditions, and related matters. The District administration first learned of Munroe’s blog in February 2011 when a reporter from a local newspaper began to ask questions; students apparently were commenting on social media.” Munroe was placed on paid suspension and, later, fired. The District had no regulation specifically prohibiting a teacher from blogging on his or her own time. The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal of Munroe’s 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit; under the Pickering balancing test, Munroe’s speech, in both effect and tone, was sufficiently disruptive so as to diminish any legitimate interest in its expression, and did not rise to the level of constitutionally protected expression. View "Munroe v. Central Bucks Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. 1030, and the Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., alleging that defendant, her former boyfriend, had gained access to her e-mail and Facebook accounts without her permission and therefore in violation of the CFAA and the SCA. Plaintiff discovered that she could not log on to her AOL e-mail account on or about August 1, 2011 and plaintiff discovered that she could not log into her Facebook account on February 24, 2012. The district court granted defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint as untimely. While the CFAA and the SCA provided a civil cause of action, the statute of limitations to file under each statute is two years. The court concluded that plaintiff's claims relating to defendant's alleged unlawful access to her e-mail account are time-barred because she filed suit on January 2, 2014, after the two year statute of limitations had expired. However, the court concluded that plaintiff's claims relating to the alleged unlawful access of her Facebook account were timely filed, less than two years from the date they accrued. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Sewell v. Bernardin" on Justia Law

Elonis used the Web site Facebook to post lyrics containing graphically violent language and imagery concerning his wife, co-workers, children, and law enforcement, interspersed with disclaimers that the lyrics were “fictitious” and that Elonis was exercising his First Amendment rights. His boss fired him. His wife obtained an order of protection. Elonis’s former employer contacted the FBI. The agency monitored Elonis’s Facebook activity and charged him under 18 U.S.C. 875(c), which makes it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce “any communication containing any threat . . . to injure the person of another.” Elonis requested a jury instruction that the government was required to prove that he intended to communicate a “true threat.” The district court told the jury that Elonis could be found guilty if a reasonable person would foresee that his statements would be interpreted as a threat. Elonis was convicted. The Third Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded. The instruction, requiring only negligence with respect to communication of a threat, is not sufficient to support conviction under Section 875(c). Mere omission from a criminal enactment of any mention of criminal intent does not eliminate that requirement. Wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal. This does not mean that a defendant must know that his conduct is illegal, but a defendant must have knowledge of “the facts that make his conduct fit the definition of the offense.” In some cases, a general requirement that a defendant act knowingly is sufficient, but where such a requirement would not protect an innocent actor, the statute must be read to require specific intent. The crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct under Section 875(c) is the threatening nature of the communication, so the mental state requirement must apply to the fact that the communication contains a threat. The requirement is satisfied if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat. The Court did not address whether a mental state of recklessness would also suffice or First Amendment issues. View "Elonis v. United States" on Justia Law

Peter Ricci, a Teamsters member since 1983, refused to endorse Union President Doyle in 2002. For the next 10 years, Ricci claims, he suffered retaliation. He was fired from jobs he should have kept; he was not placed in jobs he should have gotten; and generally disfavored, even as compared with members with less seniority. In 2012, members of the Union distributed newsletters containing statements about the Riccis. Those newsletters were also published on a website hosted on GoDaddy’s web servers. The Riccis claim that GoDaddy refused to investigate Ricci’s complaints. In the Ricci’s pro se defamation and retaliation suit, the district court dismissed all claims against GoDaddy and federal claims against the Union. The Second Circuit affirmed. GoDaddy is immune from the defamation claims under the Communications Decency Act of 1996: “[n]o 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,” 47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1), and “No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” The labor claims were barred by the NLRA’s six‐ month statute of limitations, 29 U.S.C. 160(b). View "Ricci v. Teamsters Union Local 456" on Justia Law

Navalimpianti, suing its former officers and employees (including Negro) in Florida, sought to obtain copies of e-mail messages stored by Google in California. Navalimpianti caused a subpoena to be served on Google, which Negro moved to quash. The California trial court ordered Google to produce the e-mails, based on its conclusion that Negro had consented, or was deemed to have consented, to their production. The court of appeal held that, at the time it was entered the order constituted an abuse of discretion. Since then, however, Negro has been ordered by a Florida court to give his express consent to disclosure, and he has complied with that order by e-mailing Google; the express consent takes the contemplated production outside of the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2702 and permits Google to make the requested disclosure. View "Negro v. Superior Ct." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an aspiring model, filed a failure to warn suit against Internet Brands, the company who owns the website modelmayhem.com. Plaintiff had posted information about herself on the website and two rapists used the website to lure her to a fake audition where they drugged her, raped her, and recorded her for a pornographic video. The district court dismissed plaintiff's action because her claim was barred by the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. 230(c). The court held that section 230(c)(1) precludes liability that treats a website as the publisher or speaker of information users provide on the website. This section protects websites from liability for material posted on the website from someone else. In this case, plaintiff does not seek to hold Internet Brands liable as a "publisher or speaker" of content someone posted on modelmayhem.com, or for Internet Brands' failure to remove content on the website. Plaintiff also does not claim to have been lured by any posting that Internet Brands failed to remove. Instead, plaintiff attempts to hold Internet Brands liable for failing to warn her about how third parties targeted and lured victims through the website. The duty to warn allegedly imposed by California law would not require Internet Brands to remove any user content or otherwise affect how it publishes such content. Therefore, the CDA does not bar plaintiff's failure to warn claim and the CDA was not a valid basis to dismiss the complaint. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Doe v. Internet Brands, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit seeking an injunction to prevent Yelp, a popular website, from making claims about the accuracy and efficacy of its "filter" of unreliable or biased customer reviews. The trial court granted Yelp's special motion to strike plaintiff's complaint under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 because Yelp's statements at issue were matters of public interest. The court concluded that Yelp's representations about its review filter constitute commercial speech squarely within the public speech exemption of section 425.17, subdivision (c) where Yelp's statements about its review filter consists of representations of fact about Yelp's website that are made for the purpose of obtaining approval for, promoting, or securing advertisements on Yelp's website, and Yelp's statements were made in the course of delivering Yelp's website. Further, Yelp's intended audience is an actual or potential buyer or customer, or a person likely to repeat the statement to, or otherwise influence, an actual or potential buyer or customer. The court rejected Yelp's assertion that the federal Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. 230, barred plaintiff's claims. Accordingly, the court reversed the trial court's order. Finally, plaintiff shall be given an opportunity to move to amend his complaint to substitute the real party in interest in this action as plaintiff. View "Demetriades v. Yelp, Inc." on Justia Law

Verizon challenged the FCC's Open Internet Order, which imposed disclosure, anti-blocking, and anti-discrimination requirements on broadband providers. The court concluded that the Commission has established that section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 1302(a), (b), vests it with affirmative authority to enact measures encouraging the deployment of broadband infrastructure; the Commission reasonably interpreted section 706 to empower it to promulgate rules governing broadband providers' treatment of Internet traffic, and its justification for the specific rules at issue here - that they will preserve and facilitate the "virtuous circle" of innovation that has driven the explosive growth of the Internet - was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence; given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 201 et seq., expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such; and because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules did not impose per se common carrier obligations, the court vacated those portions of the Open Internet Order. View "Verizon v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law

America’s largest law school, Thomas M. Cooley, has four Michigan campuses and one in Florida and about 3,500 students. . Anziska was “of counsel” at a New York law firm. On June 8, 2011, under the title “Investigating the Thomas Cooley School of Law,” Anziska posted on the website “JD Underground,” that the firm was investigating law schools for preying on the ignorance of “naive, clueless 22-year-olds. Perhaps one of the worst offenders is the Thomas Cooley School of Law, which grossly inflates its post-graduate employment data and salary information…. students are defaulting on loans at an astounding 41 percent… most likely … will continue to defraud unwitting students unless held civilly accountable. If you have any relevant information or know of anyone who has attended Thomas Cooley … correspondences will be kept strictly confidential.” On June 13, the firm received a cease-and-desist letter from Cooley, claiming that the post was defamatory. On June 15, under the title “Retraction re: Investigating the Thomas Cooley School of Law,” a partner posted on JD Underground that the earlier post “contained certain allegations which may have been couched as fact regarding employment and default data. These statements are hereby retracted.” Meanwhile, Anziska disseminated a draft proposed class action complaint involving 18 former or current Cooley students, containing the same allegations. The complaint became publicly available on the internet. Cooley sued, alleging defamation, tortious interference with business relations, breach of contract, and false light. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Cooley was a limited-purpose public figure and the record would not allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the defendants published the challenged statements with actual malice.View "Thomas M. Cooley Law Sch. v. Kurzon Strauss, LLP" on Justia Law

Daoud, an 18-year-old American citizen, had an email conversation with undercover FBI employees posing as terrorists who responded to messages that he had posted online. Daoud planned “violent jihad” and discussed his interest in committing attacks in the U.S, using bomb-making instructions that he had read in Inspire magazine, an English-language organ of Al Qaeda, and online. Daoud selected a Chicago bar as the target of a bomb that the agent would supply. The agent told him the bomb would destroy the building and would kill “hundreds” of people. Daoud replied: “that’s the point.” On September 14, 2012, Daoud parked a Jeep containing the fake bomb in front of the bar. In an alley, in the presence of the agent, he tried to detonate the fake bomb and was arrested. In jail, he tried to solicit someone to murder the undercover agent with whom he had dealt. The government notified Daoud, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1801, that it intended to present evidence derived from electronic surveillance conducted under the Act. His attorney sought access to the classified materials submitted in support of the government’s FISA warrant applications. The government supplied a heavily redacted, unclassified response and a classified version, accessible only to the court with a statement that disclosure “would harm the national security.” The harm was detailed in a classified affidavit signed by the FBI’s Acting Assistant Director for Counterterrorism. The district judge ordered the materials sought by defense counsel turned over. In an interlocutory appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed, stating that in addition to having the requisite security clearance the seeker of such information must establish need to know. View "United States v. Daoud" on Justia Law