Esfeller v. The Daily Reveille [1]

In March 2009, Terrance Esfeller filed a defamation lawsuit in Louisiana state court against Louisiana State University, its student newspaper The Daily Reveille, faculty advisers to the newspaper, and its top student editors. The lawsuit revolves around anonymous comments posted on the newspaper's website [2] in response to the newspaper's coverage of an ongoing legal dispute with LSU.  After filing suit, Esfeller amended his complaint to include allegations based on a March 12 story the newspaper published about the lawsuit, which republished several of the comments in question.  In the suit, Esfeller sought money damages and an injunction ordering the removal of the comments and preventing further comments about him in the future.

Judge Todd Hernandez dismissed the case [3] March 31, 2009.  He concluded that the newspaper and its operators were protected from liability under Section 230 [4] of the Communications Decency Act [4] for comments made by the website's users.  Esfeller told the Student Press Law Center [3] that he intends to pursue a case directly against the anonymous commenter or commenters and to use discovery to obtain IP addresses and other identifying information.