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An Illinois state appeals court recently held that although an employer that provided network connectivity to its employees is an “interactive service provider” under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the statute does not protect the employer from negligent supervision claims based upon the employee’s alleged use of the network to communicate threats to a third party. The plaintiff claimed that he had notified the employer that the employee was threatening and harassing him, but the employer failed to take action to stop the employee’s conduct. Lansing v. Southwest Airlines Co., 2012 IL App (1st) 101164 (Ill. Ct. App. June 8, 2012).

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By Eric Goldman

I’m trying to comprehensively catalog doctor vs. patient lawsuits over online reviews of the doctor. I’m equally interested in suits by other health care professionals; I’ve noticed dentists are surprisingly litigious. I’ve included lawsuits against intermediate publishers where the underlying litigation involves a patient review. I’ve also included suits where the review author was a family member of the patient, but I’m excluding other posts by non-patients.

Here’s the list I’ve developed so far:

* Nevyas v. Morgan, 309 F. Supp. 2d 673 (E.D. Pa. 2004)
* Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Kremer, 403 F.3d 672 (9th Cir. 2005)
* Barrett v. Rosenthal, 146 P.3d 510 (Cal. Sup. Ct. 2006)
* Gilbert v. Sykes, 53 Cal. Rptr. 3d 752 (Cal. App. Ct. 2007)
* Alvi Armani Medical, Inc. v. Hennessey, 629 F. Supp. 2d 1302 (S.D. Fla. 2008)
* Biegel v. Norberg, San Francisco Superior Ct. case # CGC-08-472522 (filed Feb. 25, 2008)
* Kim v. IAC/InterActive Corp., 2008 WL 3906427 (Cal. App. Ct. 2008)
* Reit v. Yelp, Inc., 29 Misc.3d 713 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2010)
* Wong v. Jing, 189 Cal. App. 4th 1354 (Cal. App. Ct. 2010)
* Rahbar v. Batoon, San Francisco Superior Ct., case # CGC-09-492145 (filed Sept. 2, 2009) and case # CGC-10-502884 (filed August 20, 2010)
* McKee v. Laurion Case # 69-DU-CV-10-1706 (Minn. Dist. Ct. Apr. 28, 2011)
* Lynch v. Christie, Slip Copy, 2011 WL 3920154 (D. Me. Sept. 7, 2011)
* Pensler v. Hostetler, 10 CH 35876 (filed 8/19/10); Pensler v. Cuevas, 10 CH 35238 (filed 8/16/10); and Pensler v. Bender, 09 CH 18628 (filed 6/10/09) (all in Cook County Court)
* Henry v. Does 1-100, CIV095020; plus the apparently related Henry v. Carson, CIV1002670, and Henry v. Tamara M., CIV1003042 (all in Marin Superior Court)

Three other cases that are close but factually distinguishable:

* Townson v. Liming, 2010 WL 2767984 (Tex. App. Ct. 2010)
* Lifestyle Lift Holding Co. Inc. v. Prendiville, 768 F. Supp. 2d 929 (E.D. Mich. 2011)
* Darm v. Craig, Case 1107-08823, Oregon Circuit Court

Please email me if you have any suggestions of other cases I should check out.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/09/request_for_hel.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.