Draker v. Schreiber [1]

Benjamin Schreiber and Ryan Todd, two 16-year old Clark High School students, posted a false MySpace page about their assistant principal Anna Draker in March 2006. The page was online for approximately one month before Draker learned of it. She contacted MySpace, and the social networking site took the page down at her request.

Draker sued the students and their parents in Texas state court, alleging that the page contained defamatory text and pictures and falsely depicted Draker as a lesbian, which she is not. Draker alleged that the students' parents negligently failed to supervise their children's use of the internet.  Later, she amended her complaint to include a claim for intentional infliction of emotion distress.

The students moved for summary judgment, asserting that because the "exaggerated and derogatory statements" included on the MySpace website were not assertions of fact that could be objectively verified, they were not defamatory as a matter of law.  The court agreed and dismissed the defamation claim against the students.  The students and parents then filed a motion for summary judgment on the negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. The court also granted this motion and dismissed the remainder of Draker's claims. 

Draker appealed the dismissal of her intentional infliction of emotional distress claim.  The Texas appeals court affirmed [2] the lower court's ruling on August 13, 2008, holding that Draker's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim failed because it was duplicative of her defamation claim.

One of the students was also charged criminally, as a juvenile, with retaliation and fraudulent use of identifying information. (For more information, please see the CMLP's database entry [3] on the related Texas v. Schreiber criminal matter).