Von Kuersteiner v. Schrader [1]

Eric Von Kuersteiner, who owns and operates several businesses in the "Pines" beach resort community on Fire Island, New York, sued blog operator Eric Schrader and several anonymous commenters for defamation in New York state court.  Schrader ran the now-defunct pavillion.blog, named after a club owned by Von Kuersteiner.  The blog served as "an Internet discussion board/blog on which participants [could] post comments about social life in the Fire Island Pines community."

According to the court's opinion dismissing the case [2], anonymous and pseudonymous commenters to the blog made statements critical of Von Kuersteiner and his businesses, accusing him of watering down drinks at his bars, having a stinky septic system, being unsuccessful and losing money, treating employees badly, and not having a women's restroom, among other things.

After filing suit, Von Kuersteiner moved the court for permission to take the deposition of Blog.com, Schrader's blog hosting service, to learn the names, addresses, and IP addresses of the authors of the objectionable comments. Schrader objected to this request and moved to dismiss the complaint on grounds that the posts were not defamatory, and that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act [3] (CDA 230) protected him from liability for the statements of third parties. 

In a decision on October 14, 2008, the court denied Von Kuersteiner's request for permission to take Blog.com's deposition and dismissed the case in its entirety.  The court first dismissed the case against Schrader, holding that he "exercised a publisher's traditional editorial function and is entitled to immunity under the CDA."  The court then denied Von Kuersteiner's discovery request and dismissed the case against the anonymous defendants, holding that the 35 statements Von Kuersteiner complained about were constitutionally protected statements of opinion when considered in context.