I've placed the text of the decision here (make sure your reader can handle multi-page TIFF images): http://www.politechbot.com/docs/museum.security.news.decision.031705.tiff Previous Politech messages; http://www.politechbot.com/p-04906.html http://www.politechbot.com/p-03543.html -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Museum Security News case ends (maybe) - not with a bang, but a whimper Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:42:21 -0500 From: Paul Levy <plevy@private> To: <declan@private> The federal trial court in LA has dismissed the suit by Ellen Batzel against Ton Cremers over his reposting on his "Museum Security News" listserv an accusation by one Robert Smith that Batzel had bragged about having an art collection stolen from Jewish families by the Nazis. From aught that now appears, the accusation was not only false, but may have been motivated by an unrelated dispute between Batzel and Smith. You reported on this case back when it was first decided, first in the trial court and then on appeal, because of the important issues it raised about the utility of the Communications Decency Act's immunity provisions for those who republish defamatory communications on a listserv. And we had filed amicus in the Ninth Circuit both in support of allowing Cremers appeal to go forward, and in support of reversal for further consideration of his CDA defense. The new dismissal avoids all those issues, however, on the ground that Batzel had originally sued Cremers in North Carolina, failed to serve Cremers with that suit, and then permitted that suit to be dismissed for failure to prosecute. The court held that the North Carolina dismissal was res judicata. It remains to be seen whether Batzel will appeal. It is also unclear from the opinion whether Smith remains a party to the case in LA (if he does, then the case cannot be appealed until that part of the case also ends, unless the judge gives special permission). I am attaching the ruling in electronic form; so far as I know it is not posted or reported anywhere. Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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