Reliance on Communications Decency Act immunity does not convert a lawsuit into a federal case — Sulla v. Horowitz, Civ. No. 12-00449 (D. Haw. Oct. 4, 2012)
“You wanna make a federal case out of it?” Well, maybe you do, but as the federal district court of Hawaii recently explained, citing a federal statute and arguing that the Internet is involved won’t cut it.
The plaintiff (Sulla) was counsel to a party that foreclosed on property owned by the nonprofit corporation that one of the defendants (Horowitz) owned. Sulla alleged that Horowitz and his co-defendant began publishing defamatory statements about Sulla over the Internet, including through a website with a domain name bearing his name. Sulla sued Horowitz for defamation in state court, but the defendants removed the case to federal court, apparently based on diversity jurisdiction (i.e., all the plaintiffs are citizens of a different state than all the defendants). Noting that all the parties might be citizens of Hawaii, the federal court issued an order to show cause why the action should not be sent back to state court. Defendants’ briefing on the jurisdictional issue did not allay the court’s concerns.
The defendants argued that the court actually had federal question jurisdiction. The basis for their argument? Because the allegedly defamatory statements were published on the Internet, defendants argued, the court has exclusive federal jurisdiction over the case based on the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The court disagreed, giving a quick lesson on how the CDA and federal question jurisdiction work.
First, “Section 230 [of the CDA] does not shield persons from liability for defamatory statements that they make via the internet.” Second, whether CDA immunity applies is irrelevant to the analysis of federal jurisdiction. The court cited the basic rule that federal question jurisdiction cannot arise out of a defense (as compared to a claim) based in federal law. CDA immunity is a defense, so the possibility that the CDA might protect the defendants from liability for defamation did not convert the lawsuit into a “federal case.”
The court also found the defendants’ other arguments for federal jurisdiction unpersuasive and sent the case back to state court.