Michael J. Zwebner, CEO of penny-stock holding company Universal Communication Systems, sued a number of "Doe" defendants over statements on the Raging Bull financial message board that were critical of him and his company. 

Zwebner's 300+ page complaint seeks damages for harassment, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

On November 18, 2003, one of the anonymous defendants filed a motion to quash plaintiffs' subpoena to Lycos, operator of the Raging Bull forum.  Lycos also refused to comply with the subpoena after reviewing the complaint. 

On February 4, 2004, the court dismissed the case without prejudice due to Zwebner's failure to file a joint scheduling report.

Proceeding anonymously, the owner of a country club located in Del Mar, California filed a petition in Texas state court seeking pre-litigation discovery from Google, arguing that "derogatory statements" about her had been posted on "blogs hosted by Google." The Texas state court granted MP permission to issue subpoenas to Google, and she issued subpoenas seeking the identies of the creator of the Del Mar Country Club Sucks blog and all persons who posted comments there. 

Google notified the creator of the blog, who moved to quash the subpoena.  Public Citizen and the ACLU submitted an amicus brief in support of the motion to quash, arguing that the country club owner had not justified filing suit in Texas over comments on a blog about a California country club, and that the country club owner had not produced sufficient evidence to overcome First Amendment protection for anonymous speech. The court granted the country club owner permission to amend her petition to meet the standard required by the First Amendment, but she failed to come forward with sufficient allegations or evidence, and the court granted the motion to quash the subpoena.

Tim Puntarelli, Dean of Roncalli High Scool in Indianapolis, filed a defamation lawsuit against an anonymous Facebook user (or users) who allegedly created a fake profie for him and used it to send inappropriate messages to students.  According to one press report, the lawsuit also claimed that the user engaged in harassment and identity theft.  Puntarelli sought information about the anonymous user or users from Facebook, which resisted this effort. 

The court ultimately ordered Facebook to produce identifying information for its user(s). Facebook removed the profile at Puntarelli's request before the lawsuit was filed.

ViroLogic, a biotechnology company, sued ten anonymous users of the Yahoo! Finance forum dedicated to it, after they allegedly posted internal ViroLogic information and made statements critical of the company and its officers. The original complaint included claims for defamation, trade libel, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. ViroLogic subsequently amended its complaint, limiting its claims to misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition. 

ViroLogic subpoenaed Yahoo! to uncover the identity of the Doe defendants. Yahoo! notified the Does of the subpoena, and one of them (Doe 1) filed a motion to quash.  Doe 1 also filed a motion to strike the complaint under California's anti-SLAPP statute, arguing that the lawsuit was an attempt to stifle his right to free speech. 

Meanwhile, ViroLogic moved for permission to take limited discovery regarding Doe 1.  The court granted the company permission to take his deposition, with the proviso that ViroLogic's attorneys could not reveal Doe 1's identity to ViroLogic employees. In the deposition, ViroLogic's lawyers discovered that Doe 1 had previously been a consultant for the company, and that he was closely related to a current company employee. The lawyers asked the court for permission to reveal this information, including Doe 1's identity, to ViroLogic, so that it could make a case in opposition to Doe 1's anti-SLAPP motion to strike.

In a subsequent hearing, the court granted Doe 1's motion to strike under the anti-SLAPP statute and denied ViroLogic's motion to permit its lawyers to disclose Doe 1's identity to it. The court ruled that the Doe 1's posts were an exercise of his protected right to free speech, and that ViroLogic had failed to show a sufficient likelihood of success should the case proceed.  The court dismissed the case and awarded attorneys' fees to Doe 1. It denied Doe 1's motion to quash the Yahoo! subpoena because dismissing the case mooted the issue.

ViroLogic appealed the decision and argued that the lower court had violated its due process rights by granting the anti-SLAPP motion to strike without permitting it to fully prepare a defense to that motion through access to Doe 1's identity. The California appeals court held that ruling on the anti-SLAPP motion to strike without giving ViroLogic access to Doe 1's identity deprived the company of a meaningful opportunity to oppose the motion. It recognized that Doe 1 has a right to anonymous speech, but reasoned that this right had to be balanced against ViroLogic's due process rights. See ViroLogic, Inc. v. Doe, 2004 WL 1941335, at *1, 5-7 (Cal. Ct. App. Sept. 1, 2004).

The appeals court set out a standard for lower courts to consider when deciding whether a plaintiff has shown "good cause" to discover a defendant's identity after an anti-SLAPP motion has been filed. Under this standard, the plaintiff seeking discovery must show: (1) the plaintiff's claims describe actionable conduct by the defendant; and (2) discovery of the defendant's identity is necessary for the plaintiff to present evidence in opposition to the special motion to strike. The court also indicated that, given the early stage when anti-SLAPP motions are usually litigated, it is not appropriate to impose upon the plaintiff a burden of supporting its claims with evidence.  See ViroLogic, Inc., 2004 WL 1941335, at *6. Applying this standard to the facts of the case, the appeals court determined that ViroLogic had shown "good cause" to uncover Doe 1's identity. It therefore reversed the lower court's grant of the anti-SLAPP motion to strike and its award of attorneys' fees to Doe 1, and directed the trial court to enter an order permitting disclosure of Doe 1's identity to ViroLogic.

UPDATE:

On 3/15/2005, the trial court permitted the disclosure of the identity of Doe. A series of case management conferences followed this disclosure. These conferences appear to have produced a settlement.

On 11/28/2005, ViroLogic filed a notice of settlement and dismissed the complaint with prejudice.

SPX 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 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, arguing that his comments were expressions of opinion, and thus could not be considered defamation.  SPX opposed the motion, saying that Doe's statements alleged criminal activity on SPX's part and thus could be proven false.

The court granted 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."

Pharmaceutical company Immunomedics sued "moonshine_fr," a company employee who allegedly posted confidential internal documents on a Yahoo! Finance message board, and several John Does in New Jersey state court on claims of breach of contract, breach of duty of loyalty, and negligently revealing confidential and proprietary information.

Soon after filing its complaint, Immunomedics amended it to include claims of defamation and tortious interference with economic gain against a second anonymous poster, "bioledger." In the amended complaint, it also accused moonshine_fr of continuing to reveal company information online, including product shortages in Europe and the imminent firing of the company's "european [sic] manager."  While Immunomedics admitted that moonshine_fr's online allegations were true, it claimed that her posting of them was a violation of the company's confidentiality agreement and employment provisions.

Immunomedics subpoenaed Yahoo! to determine moonshine_fr's true identity.  Yahoo! notified moonshine_fr of the subpoena, and she moved to quash it. The trial court denied her motion, and she appealed.

The appellate court affirmed the lower court's ruling.  Using the test established in Dendrite International, Inc. v. John Doe No. 3, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2001), the court determined that Immunomedics had produced sufficient evidence to support its claim that moonshine_fr was an employee and was thus subject to the company's confidentiality agreement. Without extensive analysis, the court also concluded that Immunomedics's need to identify moonshine_fr in order to enforce its confidentiality agreement outweighed her right to speak anonymously.

It is not clear what happened after the appellate court's decision.

Rabbi Mordechai Tendler requested subpoenas in Ohio state court to force Google to uncover the identities of the writers of four blogs -  Jewish Whistleblower, Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out, New Hempstead News, and The Committee for Rabbinic Integrity.  According to court documents, these blogs wrote about Tendler's defrocking due to allegations of sexual abuse. The Ohio court granted Tendler's request, but Google ignored the subpoenas.

Tendler filed his subpoena request again, this time in California state court.  Upon receipt of the California subpoenas, Google notified the four bloggers.  The writers of Jewish Whistleblower, Jewish Survivors of Sexual Violence Speak Out, and New Hempstead News moved to quash the subpoena and to strike under California's anti-SLAPP law, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.16. Tendler voluntarily withdrew his subpoena request in response.

The bloggers proceeded on their motion to strike under section 425.16, which the Santa Clara Superior Court granted.  The court also awarded the bloggers $20,330 in attorney's fees under section 425.16 (c).  Tendler appealed the court's granting of the motion to strike.

The California Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's ruling.  The court ruled that, on a plain reading of section 425.16, the anti-SLAPP motion could only be used to strike a complaint, cross-complaint, petition, or other similar pleading.  A subpoena, the court said, does not fall into this category, and therefore the anti-SLAPP motion is unavailable to strike a subpoena. As a result, the court concluded that the lower court should have denied the bloggers' motion to strike and should not have awarded them attorney's fees.