Digital Broadband Networks v. Does [1]

Digital Broadband Networks and its president Patrick Lim sued seven pseudonymous internet posters in New Jersey state court for defamation over statements on electronic bulletin boards dedicated to Digital Broadband on Ragingbull.com and on general messages boards on Yahoo. The company alleged that the purpose of the postings was to drive its stock price down in order to reap profits through short selling.

Digital Broadband filed a motion for permission to engage in pre-litigation discovery to uncover the identities of the anonymous posters.  In a March 2004 hearing, the trial court granted the motion, allowing the company to subpoena Yahoo! and Lycos, the operator of the Raging Bull forum.  

One of the posters, "pseeker," filed a motion for permission to take an immediate appeal to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, in order to prevent the disclosure of his/her identity. Public Citizen's Litigation Group filed a brief supporting pseeker's right to appeal. The record is not clear about the result of this motion or what, if anything, happened after the appeal.