New School of Orlando Preparatory v. McSween (Letters) [1]

On September 6, 2007, counsel for New School of Orlando Preparatory, an Orlando private school, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sonjia McSween, the parent of a former student. The letter claimed that statements appearing on McSween's blog, "Say NO to New School of Orlando," were "defamatory, libelous, slanderous, and/or disparaging" and demanded that she terminate the operation of the website and refrain from publishing defamatory statements about the school in the future.

In response, McSween moved the content of her blog to another blog, "Musings of a Disappointed Parent." At the top of the page on "Musings," McSween displayed a disclaimer indicating that her postings were her "opinion."

The school sent a second cease-and-desist letter on September 13, 2007. The letter argued that the "opinion" disclaimer did not eliminate or even reduce McSween's liability because she was publishing defamatory statements of fact about the school. McSween then allegedly removed the disputed statements from "Musings" and created a link to her MySpace page, where the statements apparently still appear.

The New School of Orlando, Inc., the company that owns New School of Orlando Preparatory, filed a lawsuit against McSween in Florida state court. (For more information on the lawsuit, please see the CMLP database entry, New School of Orlando v. McSween [2].)