Amazon Doesn’t “Sell” Its Marketplace Goods–Milo & Gabby v. Amazon
Milo & Gabby is a small family business that designs and sells “animal-shaped” pillowcases. It discovered that knockoffs were listed for sale on Amazon’s website. The products were actually offered for sale by third party sellers, and all but one…
Facebook Defeats Lawsuit Over Material Support for Terrorists–Cohen v. Facebook
We’ve seen a cluster of lawsuits against social media sites based on their alleged provision of material support to terrorists. The first substantive ruling–in Fields v. Twitter, now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit–was a decisive plaintiff loss, casting a…
Lawsuit Against Ripoff Report Dropped After Discovery–Vision Security v. Xcentric (Guest Blog Post)
By guest bloggers Jeffrey J. Hunt and Rachel Lassig Wertheimer [Eric’s introduction: this post is written by lawyers who represented Ripoff Report in one of their multitudinous lawsuits. Because the authors were also advocates in this case, you might assume this…
New Draft Article: “Judicial Resolution of Nonconsensual Pornography Dissemination Cases”
I’ve posted to SSRN a new article titled Judicial Resolution of Nonconsensual Pornography Dissemination Cases. I co-authored it with Angie Jin, a recent Cornell Law alum. The paper is in draft form, and we would gratefully welcome your comments. The…
How Should a Lawyer Respond to a Yelp Review Calling Him “Worst. Ever.”?–Spencer v. Glover
(Spoiler alert: suing the client is not the correct answer). The Opinion Glover hired and then fired Spencer as his divorce lawyer. Glover then posted this Yelp review: Worst ever. Had to fire him after I gave him a chance…
Dozen Amicus Briefs Oppose the Worst Section 230 Ruling of 2016 (and One Supports It)–Hassell v. Bird
You surely recall the Hassell v. Bird ruling from last year. A lawyer was unhappy with a Yelp review about her. The lawyer sued the putative author (with dubious service of process), got a default ruling that the review was…
The “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017” Bill Would Be Bad News for Section 230
As expected, last week Rep. Ann Wagner introduced the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017” bill, H.R. 1865. This is a renamed version of the draft bill, the “No Immunity for Sex Traffickers Online…
A Complaint’s Silence About Section 230 Helps It Survive Judgment on the Pleadings–Moretti v. Hertz
This is a class action lawsuit against car rental companies for an alleged “currency exchange rate scam.” Allegedly, the rental car companies quote foreign rentals in dollars but then actually charge customers in the local currency at an inflated exchange…
WARNING: Draft “No Immunity for Sex Traffickers Online Act” Bill Poses Major Threat to Section 230
I rarely blog about draft bills that have not yet been introduced. Sometimes those drafts never get introduced at all; other times, the draft bills are revised in key ways before introduction. This particular draft has been circulating for a…
Judge Balks At Section 230 Protection For Email Forwarding–Samsel v. DeSoto County School District
Today’s blog post covers a very long opinion (70 pages!) involving a school principal effectively firing a successful football coach in football-crazed northern Mississippi. If you want a taste of how much angst that can create, try to wade through…