SPX Corp. v. Doe [1]

SPX [2] sued a pseudonymous user of a Yahoo! forum as a John Doe for defamation in Ohio state court after the user accused SPX of illegal and immoral business conduct. According to court documents, Doe criticized SPX and its business and warned of an allegedly impending "SEC and FBI Probe."

Doe stipulated that he was not a citizen of Ohio and removed the case to federal court.  There, he moved to quash [3] the subpoena.  Reserving the right to rule on the motion to quash, the court gave Doe ten days to file a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.  Doe did so [4], arguing that his comments were expressions of opinion, and thus could not be considered defamation.  SPX opposed [5] the motion, saying that Doe's statements alleged criminal activity on SPX's part and thus could be proven false.

The court granted [6] the motion, rejecting SPX's arguments.  The court weighed four factors to determine whether Doe's statements were opinion: 1) the specific language used; 2) whether the statement could be verified; 3) the context of the statement; and 4) the "broader social context" in which the statement is made.  The court found that the specific language used favored SPX's claims, but the other three factors favored Doe, as the statements were unverifiable to the general public, were couched as investment opinion, and took place in an "open and uncontrolled forum."