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U.S. Court Rejects 'Net Libel Case

Posted by timothy on from the offending-the-warden dept.

RodgerDodger writes "In contrast to the Australian courts, the US courts have decided that you can't sue for defamation in your own jurisdiction. In both, the key factor was the targetted location; the Australian court ruled that the article in question there was targetted internationally, while the US court ruled that the article in question was local. It remains open (in the US) if a nationally or internationally targetted article could be sued from outisde the immediate jurisdiction."

6 comments

  1. NO! It is where it is targeted! by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 5, Informative

    The court ruling in this case is that the newspaper (and website) was local to the publisher and the harm was not directed at the plaintiff's jurisdiction.

    If the paper was USA Today instead of Hartford Courant and The New Haven Advocate the results would have been completely different.

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  2. Similar by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This sounds remarkably similar to the recent Pavlovich juris-my-diction case where the California Supreme Court declined to give the movie industry the right of venue shopping (as Slashdot reported not too long ago.

    I hope this is part of a larger legal trend toward stopping venue shopping by plaintiffs. It'd go a long way toward reducing the sheer vast bulk of frivolous lawsuits burdening the US court system these days.

    1. Re:Similar by RodgerDodger · · Score: 1

      Got to agree with this. There is nothing wrong with a plaintiff sueing from inside their own jurisdiction, but they can't get to pick and choose what that jurisdiction is.

      Publishers have the choice to publish in a less liable area, so it's not sufficient to say that it's strictly the publisher's jurisdiction that counts. This will merely result in 'publishing-shelter regimes' (ala tax-shelter regimes). However, if plaintiffs can move around too, it becomes a farce.

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  3. Escape from Death Row by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    This sounds remarkably similar to the recent Pavlovich juris-my-diction case where the California Supreme Court declined to give the movie industry the right of venue shopping
    If the movie industry had just hit the Boston Strangler (BS) button one more time they would'a won it.