Doe v. Cahill

• Decision Date: 05 October 2005
• Docket Number: No. 266, 2005.,266, 2005.
• Citation: 884 A.2d 451
• Parties: John DOE No. 1, Movant Below, Appellant, v. Patrick CAHILL and Julia Cahill, Plaintiffs Below, Appellees.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

884 A.2d 451

John DOE No. 1, Movant Below, Appellant, v. Patrick CAHILL and Julia Cahill, Plaintiffs Below, Appellees.

No. 266, 2005.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: September 7, 2005.

Decided: October 5, 2005.

David L. Finger of Finger & Slanina, L.L.C., Wilmington, DE, for appellant.

Robert J. Katzenstein (argued) and Robert K. Beste, III of Smith, Katzenstein & Furlow, L.L.P., Wilmington, DE, for appellees.

Paul Alan Levy (argued) and Allison M. Zieve of Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, DC; Norman M. Monhait of Rosenthal Monhait Gross & Goddess, P.A., Wilmington, DE; Lawrence A. Hamermesh of Widener University School of Law, Wilmington, DE, for amici curiae. Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND, BERGER, JACOBS and RIDGELY, Justices, constituting the court en banc.

STEELE, Chief Justice.

The defendant-appellant, John Doe No. 1, anonymously posted allegedly defamatory statements about the plaintiff-appellee, Cahill, on an internet blog. Cahill brought a defamation action. Seeking to serve process on Doe, Cahill sought to compel the disclosure of his identity from a third party that had the information. A Superior Court judge applied a good faith standard to test the plaintiff's complaint and ordered the third party to disclose Doe's identity. Doe appeals from the Superior Court's order. Because the trial judge applied a standard insufficiently protective of Doe's First Amendment right to speak anonymously, we reverse that judgment.

I.

On November 2, 2004, the plaintiffs below, Patrick and Julia Cahill, both residents of Smyrna, Delaware, filed suit against four John Doe defendants asserting defamation and invasion of privacy claims. This appeal involves only one of the John Doe defendants, John Doe No. 1 below and "Doe" in this opinion. Using the alias "Proud Citizen," Doe posted two statements on an internet website sponsored by the Delaware State News called the "Smyrna/Clayton Issues Blog"¹ concerning Cahill's performance as a City Councilman of Smyrna. The "Guidelines" at the top of the blog stated "[t]his is your hometown forum for opinions about public issues." The first of Doe's statements, posted on September 18, 2004, said:

If only Councilman Cahill was able to display the same leadership skills, energy and enthusiasm toward the revitalization and growth of the fine town of Smyrna as Mayor Schaeffer has demonstrated! While Mayor Schaeffer has made great strides toward improving the livelihood of Smyrna's citizens, Cahill has devoted all of his energy to being a divisive impediment to any kind of cooperative movement. Anyone who has spent any amount of time with Cahill would be keenly aware of such character flaws, not to mention an obvious mental deterioration. Cahill is a prime example of failed leadership — his eventual ousting is exactly what Smyrna needs in order to move forward and establish a community that is able to thrive on its own economic stability and common pride in its town.²

The next day, Doe posted another statement:

Gahill [sic] is as paranoid as everyone in the town thinks he is. The mayor needs support from his citizens and protections from unfounded attacks. . . .³

These were the only two internet postings attributed to Doe or mentioned in the Cahills' complaint.

Pursuant to Superior Court Rule 30, the Cahills sought and obtained leave of the Superior Court to conduct a pre-service deposition of the owner of the internet blog, Independent Newspapers. After obtaining the IP addresses associated with the blog postings from the blog's owner, the Cahills learned that Comcast Corporation owned Doe's IP address. An IP address is an electronic number that specifically identifies a particular computer using the internet. IP addresses are often owned by internet service providers who then assign them to subscribers when they use the internet. These addresses are unique and assigned to only one ISP subscriber at a time. Thus, if the ISP knows the time and the date that postings were made from a specific IP address, it can determine the identity of its subscriber.

Armed with Doe's IP address, the Cahills obtained a court order requiring Comcast to disclose Doe's identity. As required by Federal Statute⁴, when Comcast received the discovery request, it notified Doe. On January 4, 2005, Doe filed an "Emergency Motion for a Protective Order" seeking to prevent the Cahills from obtaining his identity from Comcast. The Superior Court heard argument on the motion on January 7. Following the argument, the trial judge invited supplemental briefing and both Doe and the Cahills submitted additional argument.

On June 14, 2005, the trial judge issued a memorandum opinion denying Doe's motion for a protective order. The Superior Court judge adopted a "good faith" standard for determining when a defamation plaintiff could compel the disclosure of the identity of an anonymous plaintiff. Under the good faith standard, the Superior Court required the Cahills to establish: (1) that they had a legitimate, good faith basis upon which to bring the underlying claim; (2) that the identifying information sought was directly and materially related to their claim; and (3) that the information could not be obtained from any other source. Applying this standard, the Superior Court held that the Cahills could obtain Doe's identity from Comcast.⁵ Doe filed an interlocutory appeal, which we accepted on June 28, 2005.

II.

In this case, Doe claims that the trial judge incorrectly applied a good faith standard when he denied the motion for a protective order. A claim that a trial court applied an incorrect legal standard raises a question of law that we review de novo.⁶

III.

A.

The internet is a unique democratizing medium unlike anything that has come before. The advent of the internet dramatically changed the nature of public discourse by allowing more and diverse people to engage in public debate. Unlike thirty years ago, when "many citizens [were] barred from meaningful participation in public discourse by financial or status inequalities and a relatively small number of powerful speakers [could] dominate the marketplace of ideas"⁷ the internet now allows anyone with a phone line to "become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox."⁸ Through the internet, speakers can bypass mainstream media to speak directly to "an audience larger and more diverse than any the Framers could have imagined."⁹ Moreover, speakers on internet chat rooms and blogs can speak directly to other people with similar interests. A person in Alaska can have a conversation with a person in Japan about beekeeping in Bangladesh, just as easily as several Smyrna residents can have a conversation about Smyrna politics.

Internet speech is often anonymous. "Many participants in cyberspace discussions employ pseudonymous identities, and, even when a speaker chooses to reveal her real name, she may still be anonymous for all practical purposes."¹⁰ For better or worse, then, "the audience must evaluate [a] speaker's ideas based on her words alone."¹¹ "This unique feature of [the internet] promises to make public debate in cyberspace less hierarchical and discriminatory" than in the real world because it disguises status indicators such as race, class, and age.¹²

It is clear that speech over the internet is entitled to First Amendment protection.¹³ This protection extends to anonymous internet speech.¹⁴ Anonymous internet speech in blogs or chat rooms in some instances can become the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering. As the United States Supreme Court recently noted, "anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent."¹⁵ The United States Supreme Court continued, "[t]he right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse."¹⁶

It also is clear that the First Amendment does not protect defamatory speech. "[I]t is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances."¹⁷ Certain classes of speech, including defamatory and libelous speech, are entitled to no Constitutional protection. "It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."¹⁸ Accordingly, we must adopt a standard that appropriately balances one person's right to speak anonymously against another person's right to protect his reputation.

III.

B.

In this case, this Court is called upon to adopt a standard for trial courts to apply when faced with a public figure plaintiff's discovery request that seeks to unmask the identity of an anonymous defendant who has posted allegedly defamatory material on the internet. Before this Court is an entire spectrum of "standards" that could be required, ranging (in ascending order) from a good faith basis to assert a claim, to pleading sufficient facts to survive a motion to dismiss, to a showing of prima facie evidence sufficient to withstand a motion for summary judgment, and beyond that, hurdles even more stringent. The Cahills urge this Court to adopt the good faith standard applied by the Superior Court. We decline to do so. Instead we hold that a defamation plaintiff must satisfy a "summary judgment" standard before obtaining the identity of an anonymous defendant.

We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously. The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring...