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Cahill, a City Councilman of Smyrna Delaware, sued John Doe defendant for making allegedly defamatory statements about him in a political blog. A lower Court ordered that John Doe's identity be revealed, and John Doe appealed the decision. This is the first State Court to decide a case involving the right to speak anonymously on the internet. It might also be the first to explicitly recognize that frivolous cases are sometimes filed with ill intent for the sole reason of discovering a critic's real identity. The Court took this into account in choosing a standard for deciding when a defendant's identity should be disclosed:
It is clear that speech over the internet is entitled to First Amendment protection. This protection extends to anonymous internet speech....
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We are concerned that setting the standard too low [for ordering the disclosure of an anonymous poster's identity] will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously. The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all. A defamation plaintiff, particularly a public figure, obtains a very important form of relief by unmasking the identity of his anonymous critics. The revelation of identity of an anonymous speaker “may subject [that speaker] to ostracism for expressing unpopular ideas, invite retaliation from those who oppose her ideas or from those whom she criticizes, or simply give unwanted exposure to her mental processes.” Plaintiffs can often initially plead sufficient facts to meet the good faith test applied by the Superior Court, even if the defamation claim is not very strong, or worse, if they do not intend to pursue the defamation action to a final decision. After obtaining the identity of an anonymous critic through the compulsory discovery process, a defamation plaintiff who either loses on the merits or fails to pursue a lawsuit is still free to engage in extra-judicial self-help remedies; more bluntly, the plaintiff can simply seek revenge or retribution.
Indeed, there is reason to believe that many defamation plaintiffs bring suit merely to unmask the identities of anonymous critics. As one commentator has noted, “[t]he sudden surge in John Doe suits stems from the fact that many defamation actions are not really about money.” “The goals of this new breed of libel action are largely symbolic, the primary goal being to silence John Doe and others like him.” This “sue first, ask questions later” approach, coupled with a standard only minimally protective of the anonymity of defendants, will discourage debate on important issues of public concern as more and more anonymous posters censor their online statements in response to the likelihood of being unmasked.
The Court considered three different standards for evaluating when it should force the disclosure of an anonymous defendant's identity.
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A "Good Faith" Standard: Under this standard, the Plaintiff would have to show that he had a legitimate, good faith basis upon which to bring the underlying claim; (2) that the identifying information sought was directly and materially related to their claim; and (3) that the information could not be obtained from any other source. This was the standard applied In re Subpoena Duces Tecum to America Online. This is the easiest test for the Plaintiff to meet and the least protective of the defendant’s right to speak anonymously.
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A "Motion to Dismiss" Standard: This standard, as spelled out in Rule 12 (b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, provides a little more protection to the defendant since it is a more stringent standard than the "Good Faith" standard. Still, the added protection will be minimal because successful motions to dismiss are very rare. Courts bend over backwards to avoid dismissing complaints prematurely and a court will normally dismiss a complaint only if it concludes with reasonable certainty that the Plaintiff will be unable to present any set of facts that would entitle him to relief. So long as there is a reasonable possibility that the Plaintiff can present facts that will allow him to prevail, a Court will not grant a motion to dismiss.
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A "Summary Judgment" Standard: Under the " summary judgment" standard, a Court will weigh all the facts set before it by both sides and decide whether the Plaintiff has a strong enough case to prevail. Under this standard, the Plaintiff must actually produce enough evidence to prove to the Court that it can win the case before the Court will order that the Defendant's identity should be revealed. This is how the Court explained the summary judgment standard.
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In deciding a motion for summary judgment, “a trial court shall examine the factual record and make reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party to determine if there is any dispute of material “[I]f from the evidence produced there is a reasonable indication that a material fact is in dispute or if it appears desirable to inquire more thoroughly into the facts in order to clarify application of the law, summary judgment is not appropriate.” Thus, to obtain discovery of an anonymous defendant’s identity under the summary judgment standard, a defamation plaintiff “must submit sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case for each essential element of the claim in question.” In other words, the defamation plaintiff, as the party bearing the burden of proof at trial, must introduce evidence creating a genuine issue of material fact for all elements of a defamation claim within the plaintiff’s control.
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The Court concluded that Cahill must meet the summary Judgment standard before it would allow him to discover the identity of John Doe.
...even silly or trivial libel claims can easily survive a motion to dismiss where the plaintiff pleads facts that put the defendant on notice of his claim, however vague or lacking in detail these allegations may be. Clearly then, if the stricter motion to dismiss standard is incapable of screening silly or trivial defamation suits, then the even less stringent good faith standard is less capable of doing so.
... where the plaintiff knows the defendant’s identity, no constitutional harm comes from allowing a silly or trivial claim to survive a motion to dismiss; the trial court can easily dispose of these cases on a motion for summary judgment. In a case like the one at bar, however, substantial harm may come from allowing a plaintiff to compel the disclosure of an anonymous defendant’s identity by simply showing that his complaint can survive a motion to dismiss or that it was filed in good faith. . . .a summary judgment proceeding can dispense with weak or even “silly” libel cases before trial (but even then only after significant expense and anxiety to the parties). Applying a summary judgment standard to a public figure defamation plaintiff’s discovery request to obtain an anonymous defendant’s identity will more appropriately protect against the chilling effect on anonymous First Amendment internet speech that can arise when plaintiffs bring trivial defamation lawsuits primarily to harass or to unmask their critics. . . .
We conclude that the summary judgment standard is the appropriate test by which to strike the balance between a defamation plaintiff’s right to protect his reputation and a defendant’s right to exercise free speech anonymously. We accordingly hold that before a defamation plaintiff can obtain the identity of an anonymous defendant through the compulsory discovery process he must support his defamation claim with facts sufficient to defeat a summary judgment motion.
The Cahill Court cited Dendrite International v. John Doe No. 3 in justifying its decision. However, the Cahill decision differed from the Dendrite Decision in two respects.
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- The Dendrite Court said the Plaintiff had to meet the summary judgment standard for every element of the complaint. It said that before it would order the defendant's identity be disclosed, the Plaintiff must provide evidence backing up every element in its complaint. The Cahill Court said that the Plaintiff only had to provide evidence backing up every element within its control. Since Cahill was a public figure, he had to prove that the defamatory statements made about him were made with actual malice. Actual malice is a legal term that means something different than what it does in everyday language. When someone makes a statement with actual malice, they are either intentionally lying or making a statement in reckless disregard for the truth. Proving that the Defendant made a statement with actual malice is difficult because the Plaintiff must present evidence about the Defendant's state of mind at the time he made the statement. This is often impossible to do without learning the identity of the Defendant and obtaining any relevant documents he may have produced or read before making the statement. The summary judgment standard demanded by the Dendrite Court would have required a Plaintiff in a public figure libel case to produce prima facie evidence that the defendant made his statement with actual malice. The Cahill Court held that proving actual malice was unnecessary before ordering that Doe's identify be disclosed since it would be practically impossible for a Plaintiff to have this evidence without knowing Doe's identity.
- The Dendrite Court held that after concluding the Plaintiff had passed the summary judgment hurdle, "the Court must then balance the Defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity". The Court should force disclosure only after the Plaintiff wins this balancing test. The Cahill Court rejected this balancing test since it needlessly complicates the analysis. The Cahill Court concluded that the summary judgment test was the only test necessary to protect the Defendant's right of anonymous speech.
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Both the Dendrite and Cahill cases provide good safeguards for the right to speak anonymously, though Dendrite provides even more protection than Cahill. You could say that Dendrite provides summary judgment protection, whereas Cahill only provides protection that is "summary judgment light".
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