Internet's reach confounds Minnesota high court in free-speech case
By The Associated Press
03.07.02
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MINNEAPOLIS — Cyberspace doesn't lend itself to neat boundaries, Minnesota's Supreme Court found yesterday as justices considered a libel lawsuit involving a chat-room feud between two Egyptologists.
The state's top jurists were asked to determine if Alabama scholar Katherine Griffis had the right to bring a libel case in her home state simply because a former St. Paul resident mentioned her Alabama ties in an Internet posting that questioned her credentials.
Marianne Luban, who has since moved and won't say where, is fighting a $25,000 libel judgment in the Alabama court. According to court papers, Luban called Griffis "a con artist," "scam artist" and "phony" in a posting that could be viewed by others who study Egypt.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals earlier sided with Griffis.
The case could determine how much free-speech protection Minnesotans have on the Internet, or how easy it will be for out-of-state people to sue Minnesotans over cyberspace comments they find untrue or defamatory.
It was apparent from oral arguments yesterday that the line is fuzzy, and clearing it up may give justices fits.
"We now live in a world where you can put words in space. Are we dealing with the proposition that wherever they land there is jurisdiction?" Justice Russell Anderson asked Griffis' attorney, Peter Erlinder, at one point.
Erlinder, a William Mitchell College of Law professor, said Luban's mention of Griffis' work in Alabama cleared the way for a lawsuit in that state because the remarks threatened her consulting business there. Griffis has taught Egyptology to the public periodically at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
To take away Griffis' ability to sue in Alabama, Erlinder said, would make it difficult to seek amends against someone distributing possibly defamatory information.
"It's a burden to search out where that person is at any given time," he said.
A 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case involving actress Shirley Jones and the National Enquirer figured heavily into the arguments and justices' questioning. In that case, Jones was allowed to sue the Florida-based Enquirer and two staff members in California because an article she claimed had libeled her was most harmful to her in her home state.
But John Borger, who represents Luban, drew distinctions between the cases. He said California was a big outlet for the Enquirer, giving it as strong a tie to the state as Jones' residency.
Aside from Luban's mention of Alabama, the distribution was limited to Egyptologists and not geared toward a broad Alabama audience, Borger noted.
"There is no special relationship with that group to Alabama," he said. Any lawsuit, he said, should have been brought in the state where the message originated.
Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz seized on the same point earlier in the hearing. "We have no evidence of people in Alabama all linking up to the discussion group," she said.
Justice Paul Anderson reversed Borger's argument, asking whether Minnesotans who are the subject of disparaging Internet remarks would lose out if the bar for establishing a home-state connection is too high.
"Boy, if I want to defame someone in Minnesota, I'm going to find some state with loose laws of libel and slander," he said.
Only five of the seven justices will issue a ruling, which should come sometime in the next few months. Two justices, Joan Ericksen Lancaster and James Gilbert, recused themselves for reasons the court wouldn't disclose.
A related dispute, involving an injunction stopping Luban from posting other comments about Griffis, is also moving through Minnesota's courts. A Court of Appeals panel on March 5 reinstated the injunction thrown out by a Ramsey County district judge, but ordered the judge to make it less restrictive.
Yesterday's arguments were conducted before some 250 students at the University of Minnesota's law school.
Update
Minnesota high court: Internet critic can't be sued in Alabama
Unanimous decision overturns rulings in two lower courts that had upheld $25,000 judgment for Alabama scholar.
07.15.02
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