Rocker Management v. Does 1-20 [1]

Investment management firm Rocker Management LLC filed a defamation suit against 20 anonymous posters who criticized Rocker Management and employee Marc Cohodoes on Yahoo! message boards.  According to court filings, the posts accused Cohodoes of threatening stock analysts, lying about stock information, and being under investigation by the SEC.  Rocker Management filed suit against the posters in New Jersey federal court, bringing claims of business libel and unlawful restraint of trade.

Rocker Management filed a subpoena against Yahoo! in California federal court seeking the identities of the anonymous posters.  One of the posters, known as "harry3866," filed a motion to quash the subpoena [2] on April 4, 2003.  Harry3866 argued that Rocker Management could not show probable cause that he had defamed the company and further that his First Amendment right to speak anonymously required that the subpoena be quashed.

On May 29, 2003, the California court granted [3] harry3866's motion to quash the subpoena.  The court found that harry3866's statements probably were opinion, particularly given the critical climate in the Yahoo! message boards.  Further, the court reasoned that Rocker had not shown that the statements were sufficiently factual to qualify as libelous, particularly given that Rocker did not precisely delineate which statements it alleged to be libelous.  Thus, the court found that a reasonable viewer would not find any of the dispute statements to be defamatory.

The other Does filed motions to quash the subpoena shortly afterward.  According to the New Jersey and California courts' dockets for the case, Rocker Management voluntarily dismissed its complaint on July 15, 2003, before the court ruled on the motions.