Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Recordings LLC
| Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Recordings LLC | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit |
| Full case name | 'Sarah Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Records LLC |
| Argued | May 1 2014 |
| Decided | June 16 2014 |
| Citation(s) | 755 F.3d 398 (6th Cir. 2014) http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/14a0125p-06.pdf |
| Holding | |
| Defendants' actions immune to suit under the material contribution test. | |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Ralph B. Guy, Julia Smith Gibbons, Richard Allen Griffin |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Gibbons |
| Laws applied | |
| Communications Decency Act section 230 immunity | |
Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Recordings LLC is case in which the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the Roommates material development test for limiting immunity under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). A libel suit was pursued by Sarah Jones, formerly a high school teacher and Cincinnati Ben–Gals cheerleader, against Dirty World, LLC, (Dirty World) operator of the celebrity gossip web site TheDirty.com, concerning two postings on TheDirty.com that Dirty World refused to remove.
TheDirty.com is a website, founded by Nik Richie, that publishes anonymous gossip from site users. In October and December 2009, two posts pictured Jones and accused her of promiscuity and infecting others with sexual transmitted diseases. Each post was authored by a site user and anonymously attributed to "The Dirty Army". An editorial note by Richie was appended and signed "nik". Jones sent several e-mails to Richie asking for the posts to be removed. Richie refused to, even after Jones hired an attorney and threatened suit.
Jones filed suit in federal district court on December 14, 2009, alleging defamation, libel per se, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress under state tort law. Jones was a resident of Northern Kentucky, a teacher at Dixie Heights High School in Edgewood, Kentucky and a member of the cheerleading squad of the Cincinnati Bengals professional football team. Jones initially brought suit against Dirty World Entertainment Recordings, and in August, 2010, was awarded an $11 million default judgement when the defendant failed to answer the suit. It later came to light that the plaintiff had mistakenly sued the wrong company: Dirty World Entertainment recordings operates "TheDirt.com," while the operator of the offending site ("TheDirty.com") is named DirtyWorldLLC. Jones subsequently filed an amended complaint including Dirty World, LLC.
Richie and Dirty World moved to dismiss the case for lack of personal jurisdiction, and for judgement as a matter of law, claiming that Section 230 of the CDA gave Dirty World, as a provider of interactive computer services, immunity from suit over material authored by third parties and published on the website. The district court denied these motions, concluding that a publisher, by "ratifying or adopting the posts" by addition of comments and invitation of further material would lose their immunity. The trial ended in a mistrial after the jury hung, but Jones prevailed at the second trial, winning $338,000 in combined compensatory and punitive damages. Richie and Dirty World appealed to the Sixth Circuit.
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