Mayfield v. Fullhart

Mayfield v. Fullhart (August 21, 2014)

STATUS: Texas appellate court rules that single publication rule applies to the Internet.

Tex.App:  Single Publication Rule Applies to Online Publication
In the first Texas appellate decision to address the issue, the court held that the single publication rule applied to a television station's news report publicly available on the Internet.  The court also held that the discovery rule does not apply when an allegedly defamatory statement is disseminated via the mass media.

Opinion:
http://www.medialaw.org/images/medialawdaily/mayfield08.22.14.pdf

Johnson v. City of Raleigh

Johnson v. City of Raleigh (3/29/13)

STATUS: Defamation claim dismissed on 3/29/13

D.N.C.: Court Applies Single Publication Rule to Dismiss Defamation Claim
A North Carolina federal court applied the single publication rule in an Internet defamation case in dismissing on statute of limitation grounds long running libel claims against several media defendants who has accused plaintiff of having a statutory rape conviction. It is the first trial or appellate court decision in the Fourth Circuit to squarely apply the single publication rule in dismissing an Internet defamation claim.

Order:
http://www.medialaw.org/images/medialawdaily/raleigh.pdf

Woodhull v. Meinel, No. D-202-CV-200700346 (N.M. Dist. Ct. filed Jan. 11, 2007)
Status: Trial court grant of summary judgment reversed, No. 27,959 (N.M. App. Oct. 24, 2008).

Plaintiff sued over a statement about her posted on defendant’s web site, www.happyhacker.org, on Oct. 14, 2003, alleging that the plaintiff had solicited defendant to hack into the website of the University of Florida student newspaper’s web site and remove a particular article, but that defendant had told plaintiff that doing so would be illegal. Defendant repeated and summarized the same alleged incident in a new post on Jan. 6, 2006, which also included an e-mail from the editor of the newspaper. Plaintiff sued for defamation on Jan. 11, 2007. The trial court granted summary judgment, holding that claims against the first posting was barred by New Mexico’s three-year statute of limitations on defamation claims; that claims from the second posting were also barred by the statute of limitations and the “single publication rule;” and that the suit was barred by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

On appeal, the appeals court reversed the summary judgment as to the second posting, saying that the second posting was sufficiently different so that the “single publication rule” did not apply, and that whether the Communications Decency Act applies is a question of fact for a jury.

Links and Court Documents:
Case information and documents: http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/woodhull-v-meinel