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AOL Subscribers Can Be Sued in Virginia Courts
ITR writes "Another blow against the cyber-constitutional separation of 'Internet and Geography', a Virginia court rules that an AOL user in Texas can be forced to appear in a Virginia court to answer a defamation lawsuit. 'The upshot, said the judge, is that the defendant's use of the server to facilitate the alleged libel was sufficient to warrant jurisdiction under Virginia's long-arm statute -- the state law that gives courts power over out-of-state defendants.' "
Okay [flame suit on] I have an opinion on this that differs greatly from most of what I'm seeing here. This is not flamebait, but just another perspective.
/. summary), the suit accuses the defendants of no less than that very act.
One of the major problems with the Internet, and especially the people on it, is the prevailing assumption that "freedom of speech" equates to "freedom to libel and slander other people and corporate entities".
If you call someone a pedophile in print, you'd better be ready to be sued. Why should it be any different on the Internet? For those of you who didn't actually read the article (apparently a lot of you judging from the comments that seem to have opinions formed solely off of the
I think it is high time that people be held accountable for what they say online to other people. Folks say things on the Internet that they'd dare not say in print. I've been accused of a few libelous things myself and was advised to not proceed with filing suit due to the ambiguity of how the law applies to the Internet.
Americans have enjoyed the freedom of speech for many years, but have always known that the freedom of speech does NOT mean that you can say anything about anyone and get away with it. Apparently folks have forgotten that after getting their AOL accounts.
This ruling is nothing new. It's just the straightforward application of an _existing_ legal rule relating to intentional torts committed in interstate commerce. Some years ago, a Florida publisher published defamatory statements about a California resident in a magazine distributed in interstate commerce. The Californian haled the Florida company into a California court on the defamation suit. This case goes back at least twenty years (1972, if I am not mistaken).
Nor is this the first time it's happened on the Internet. I personally know of a woman from Minnesota who was sued by someone in Alabama (in Alabama state court) over something defamatory she put on the web. She failed to appear in Alabama and lost a default judgment and is now fighting (and losing) to keep the plaintiff from executing the judgment against her in Minnesota.
This has nothing to do with "freedom of speech" or anything like that. It's not even news (except perhaps to the woefully uneducated American public that pays no attention to legal matters 98% of the time anyway). This is a well-established legal rule, the application of which in this situation is completely unsurprising.
Now, let's correct some misconceptions:
* In theory this means that anyone who libels AOL can be sued in Virginia -- even if the libellant is without the United States. There may be problems with service of process, of course.
* "Internet Culture" (assuming there was such a thing) is utterly irrelevant.
* The theorem that the law doesn't apply to the Internet is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT.
* AOL Subscribers probably explicitly consent to jurisdiction in Virginia as part of their subscription agreement.
* Virginia is not overriding the federal courts. They're exercising long-arm jurisdiction consistent with the constitution over an intentional tort committed against a domiliciary of the state of Virginia, consistent with well-established law. Every state has a long-arm statute of some sort; most states have one identical in effect to Virginia's. The same thing would have happened if it was Netcom or Earthlink instead of AOL except we'd be talking about a California court.
The Internet is not a haven for lawlessness. It's high time you twits figured that out.