Arthur v. Harrington [1]

Virgie Arthur, mother of deceased celebrity Anna Nicole Smith, subpoenaed blogger Lyndal Harrington in a federal defamation lawsuit.  Arthur originally filed claims of defamation and conspiracy to defame against Howard K. Stern, CBS Studios, and KPRC Houston after Stern and Anna Nicole Smith allegedly defamed Arthur on an episode of "Entertainment Tonight."  Numerous blogs and websites discussed and criticized Arthur following the episode and lawsuit.

The subpoena against Harrington sought:

• all of Harrington's e-mails sent to or received from Stern and Smith;
• all e-mails regarding Arthur or her attorneys, regardless of who they came from or were sent to;
• all documentation regarding Harrington's blog and website postings related to Arthur, Stern, Smith, and other parties related to the suit;
• various chat room logs concerning the suit, related parties or related issues;
• all documents concerning communications with Stern and other parties, including Stern's attorneys; and
• a copy of the portions of Harrington's computer hard drive and other storage media that contain content related to the lawsuit, related individuals, and related Internet postings.

Arthur withdrew the subpoena without prejudice on Feb. 11, 2008 for purposes of re-calendaring, citing a Bahamanian inquest into the death of her son.  She served Harrington with a new subpoena on March 24.  On April 14, 2008, Arthur  again withdrew her subpoena without prejudice in order to give Harrington -- who had been representing herself pro se -- more time to find an attorney. 

 UPDATE:

5/22/09 - The court found Harrington in comptempt for failing to turn over her computer, which she claims was "stolen in a burglary less than a week after the judge ordered the machine to be produced." Harrington was jailed for five days. It is extremely unusual to order jail time in a civil trial. 

She had not yet filed a new subpoena as of June 16, 2009.

Arthur has also sued Harrington in a related Texas state suit.  See Arthur v. TMZ.com (state) [2] for more information.