AOL Wins Skirmish on Defamation
America Online Inc. won a Supreme Court fight Monday to kill a defamation lawsuit over comments posted by a subscriber to the online service.
The justices passed up the chance to resolve fundamental questions about the legal vulnerability and responsibility of Internet service providers. The court left intact a lower court decision protecting companies from lawsuits over e-mails, bulletin board messages and other online communications.
AOL and other Internet access companies want protection if their subscribers make libelous statements over the Internet. Although the 1996 federal Communications Decency Act grants companies immunity in most circumstances, AOL has waged court fights to ensure broad application of the law.
In the high court case, Kenneth Zeran charged AOL at least has a duty to quickly delete harmful statements posted on its own bulletin boards once the company is notified of a problem.
Zeran said an unidentified person in 1995 posted Zeran’s phone number along with an advertisement for T-shirts that made light of the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal office building.
Zeran said he received a flood of angry messages, including death threats. Zeran said he immediately asked AOL to remove the message. His lawsuit said AOL was slow to act and then refused to post a retraction or to screen for later postings.
AOL had argued that Internet service providers have no practical means to monitor even a small portion of the millions of online statements made every day by its subscribers.
In other action Monday, the Supreme Court:
* Agreed to hear an appeal by Korean tire maker Kumho Tire Co., allowing the justices to consider giving companies a powerful new weapon to fend off expert testimony that can be decisive in product liability cases.
The case will give the high court a chance to extend a major 1993 decision requiring judges to strictly screen evidence based on scientific studies.
The court will decide whether judges must use the same demanding standard in deciding whether experts can offer conclusions based on their general experience or training, rather a specific scientific study.
Kumho Tire is fighting a lawsuit by an Alabama family whose minivan crashed in a 1993, killing one child and injuring the seven others in the van. The suit charges that the blowout of a 5-year-old Kumho tire caused the crash.
* Refused to consider an appeal by Connecticut officials in their $900-million lawsuit against the cigarette industry.
The justices left intact a lower court decision allowing Philip Morris Cos., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and other cigarette makers to spar over the major issues in the case in a federal court. Connecticut officials want federal courts to bow out of the dispute, leaving decisions to a state tribunal where, traditionally, judges are viewed as more friendly to local officials.
* Agreed to hear an appeal by a group of asbestos-exposed workers and others challenging a $1.5-billion class-action settlement of asbestos claims against Owens Corning’s Fibreboard Corp. and its two insurers, CNA Financial Corp. and Chubb Corp.
