No. 13-5946
Jones v. Dirty World Entm’t Recordings, et al.
Page 2
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OPINION
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JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. This case presents the issue of whether the
Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), 47 U.S.C. § 230, bars the state-law defamation
claims of plaintiff-appellee Sarah Jones. Jones was the unwelcome subject of several posts
anonymously uploaded to www.TheDirty.com, a popular website operated by defendantsappellants Nik Lamas-Richie and DIRTY WORLD, LLC (“Dirty World”), and of remarks
Richie posted on the site.
The website enables users to anonymously upload comments,
photographs, and video, which Richie then selects and publishes along with his own distinct,
editorial comments. In short, the website is a user-generated tabloid primarily targeting nonpublic figures.
In response to the posts appearing on www.TheDirty.com, Jones brought an action in
federal district court alleging state tort claims of defamation, libel per se, false light, and
intentional inflection of emotional distress. Richie and Dirty World claimed that § 230(c)(1)
barred these claims. The district court rejected this argument and denied defendants-appellants’
motion to dismiss, motion for summary judgment, motion to revise judgment, and motion for
judgment as a matter of law. The district court also denied Richie’s and Dirty World’s motion
for leave to file an interlocutory appeal. The case was submitted to a jury, twice. The first trial
ended in a mistrial upon a joint motion. The second trial resulted in a verdict in favor of Jones
for $38,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. On appeal, Richie and
Dirty World maintain that § 230(c)(1) barred Jones’s claims.
This is a case of first impression in this circuit. In Doe v. SexSearch.com, we “explicitly
reserve[d] the question of [the] scope [of the CDA] for another day.” 551 F.3d 412, 416 (6th Cir.
2008).
We now consider when a website is not an “information content provider” under
47 U.S.C. § 230(f)(3) with respect to information it publishes such that § 230(c)(1) bars state-law
tort claims predicated on that information.