Experian Information Solutions v. Sheehan [1]

William A. Sheehan sued a number of credit reporting agencies, including Experian, in federal court in Washington, alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In that litigation, Experian asserted a counterclaim against Sheehan for defamation, commercial disparagement and other torts based on the statements appearing on Sheehan's website.

According to documents filed in that case, Sheehan operated a personal website, on which he posted criticism of government officials and credit reporting agencies. His postings included comments about Experian, allegedly calling its employees "liars" and "scumbags." Sheehan also allegedly posted employees' home addresses and telephone numbers.

Experian moved for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prohibit Sheehan from posting on his website: (1) "any false or defamatory statements about Experian, its employees or agents"; and (2) "any other language specifically calculated to induce others to harass, threaten or attack Experian, its employees or agents, including, but not limited to, their social security numbers, home phone numbers and maps to their homes." In June 1998, the court denied the first part of Experian's requested order, but granted the second.

In July 1998, the court granted Sheehan's motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order and denied Experian's motion for a preliminary injunction. The court reaffirmed its prior ruling that the first part of the restraining order would constitute an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech because it asked the court to prohibit speech that had not yet been found to be defamatory. It further held that the second part of the restraining order constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint because Sheehan's online speech was protected by the First Amendment since there was no evidence that he had published anything that could be deemed an incitement to imminent unlawful action.