Court dismisses lawsuit against Match.com arising out of attack of one member by another – Beckman v. Match.com, 2013 WL 2355512 (D. Nev. May 29, 2013)
A court threw out a Match.com subscriber’s lawsuit alleging that the online dating service was responsible for the injuries she sustained from being attacked by a man whom she met through the service. Mary Kay Beckman met Wade Mitchell Ridley through Match.com and dated him briefly before ending the relationship. After the break-up, Ridley sent Beckman threatening and harassing text messages. Several months later, Ridley ambushed Beckman at her residence and repeatedly stabbed and kicked her.
Beckman filed a $10 million lawsuit against Match.com for (1) negligent misrepresentation; (2) deceptive trade practices; (3) negligent failure to warn; (4) negligence; and (5) negligent infliction of emotional distress. The federal district court of Nevada granted Match.com’s motion to dismiss the entire lawsuit.
The court held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunized Match.com from the negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress claims. The court easily found that Match.com was an “interactive services provider” and not an “information content provider.” The court also found that the theory behind the claims was exactly the reason that CDA immunity exists—to protect publishers against liability based on publication of online content generated by third parties. Beckman alleged that Match.com was negligent in posting Ridley’s profile, which led to her to date Ridley and later be attacked by him. Because the information in the profile originated from Ridley, CDA immunity protected Match.com from liability based on publication of the profile.
The court took a bit more effort to apply the CDA to Beckman’s claims for negligent failure to warn and negligent representation. Although those claims tried to focus on Match.com’s alleged failure to warn Beckman instead of Ridley’s profile, the court concluded that the wrongful conduct alleged in the claims was still traceable to the publication of the profile. There was nothing for Match.com to negligently misrepresent or negligently fail to warn about other than what a Match.com user might find on another user’s profile. Since the negligent failure and negligent misrepresentation claims were just another way of holding Match.com liable for information originating with a third party, the CDA barred those claims.
The court also found reasons to dismiss the negligence-based claims other than the CDA. The negligence claim failed because no special relationship exists between a provider of online dating services and its subscribers, and in the absence of a special relationship, Match.com owed no duty to its subscriber. The emotional distress claim could not survive because, according to the court, posting an online dating profile did not rise to the level of “extreme and outrageous” conduct required to recover for emotional distress. Finally, Beckman did not satisfy a heightened pleading standard that applied to the negligent misrepresentation claim.
The deceptive trade practices claim, which Beckman brought under the Federal Trade Commission Act, was dismissed because there is no private right of action to enforce the Act. Beckman argued that the claim alleged that Match.com was negligence per se for violating the Act, but the court found that she did not plead such a claim.
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