Cohen v. Doe [1]

Alissa Cohen sued Doe for defamation and trade libel in Maine state court after Doe criticized Cohen on various online forums, including www.complaints.com and www.sunfood.com.  Doe allegedly purchased but did not receive food-related items from Cohen's website, www.alissacohen.com [2].  Cohen also sought an injunction against Doe to prevent Doe from continuing to criticize her.

According to court filings,  Cohen alleges that Doe criticized her business practices and ethics. Some of the claims allegedly made by Doe were that Cohen "stole $ 100 from a young girl" and threatened her, that she "threatened a customer's life," and that she acted fraudulently "by cashing a check and then not delivering an ordered product."  Doe eventually agreed to add a posting to the site that she had received a refund when she got her money back, but she never did so because she never received a refund.

On January 24, 2007, Doe filed a motion to dismiss asserting that the Maine court lacked jursidiction over her because she was a resident of Nevada and did not have sufficient contacts with Maine to support jursidiction.  On May 23, 2007, the court denied the motion.

Update:

After extended settlement negotiations, the case was resolved by means of a consent decree entered on September 16, 2009. According to the docket sheet, the terms of the consent decree include the following order issued by the court: "1. That the defendant and her agents, servants, employees, successors and assigns are permanently enjoined and restrained from directly or indirectly posting on the internet or any other digital media any message that disparages plaintiff Alissa Cohen; and 2. that any third party main[t]aining control over any online forum, message board or other website that contains a posting that disparages plaintiff Alissan [sic] Cohen is hereby ordered to delete, remove or destroy such posting within three (3) days of the third party's notice of this order. 3. The court will retain jurisdiction of this case for enforcement purposes and expects that both parties will forbear from directly or indirectly posting disparaging comments concerning the other through the internet or other digital media."

Note that the entry of a consent decree does not necessarily indicate that the defendant admits any fault or wrongdoing; a defendant may agree to the entry of such an order as a method of settling a dispute.