Hester v. Home in Henderson [1]

On April 8, 2010, attorneys for former Vance County commissioner Thomas S. Hester, Jr. served a subpoena on Jason A. Feingold, editor of the Home in Henderson [2] blog, commanding him to appear for a deposition and to turn over identifying information for 20 blog commenters. The comments in question were attached to Feingold's blog post entitled "Arrest Made in Elder Abuse Case," which appeared on Home in Henderson eight months prior. According to Hester's complaint, the commenters used screen names like "Beautiful Dreamer" and "Fatboy" to make false statements suggesting that Hester was a slumlord and should be jailed.

Feingold and Home in Henderson filed a motion to quash the subpoena, arguing that both the North Carolina shield law [3] and the First Amendment protect the commenters' identifies from disclosure.

On June 28, 2010, Judge Howard E. Manning, Jr. found that the statements of six of the twenty commenters were actionable and enforced the subpoena as to these commenters. The court quashed the subpoena with respect to the remaining commenters. Three days later, Robert D. Gupton identified himself on a local radio show [4] as "Point Keeper," one of the six commenters.