CINCINNATI, OH — A U.S. appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to hold adult dating site SexSearch accountable for a member’s misconduct.The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled plaintiff John Doe “failed to state a claim” in his ongoing pursuit of SexSearch, but did not reach any conclusions on the merits of SexSearch’s purported defense under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The CDA’s Section 230 states “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” U.S. courts have interpreted the clause to mean internet service providers are not liable for unmoderated comments, profiles and other material posted by users.
The original lawsuit was filed in April 2007 after Doe was charged with multiple felony counts stemming from unlawful sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl he met through her profile at SexSearch. The criminal charges eventually were dropped.
Doe said he believed the girl was 18 not only because her profile specifically stated her age but also because SexSearch represented that it requires all members to verify their majority. The girl is referred to as “Jane Roe” in the suit.
Doe sought seizure of SexSearch’s assets, an injunction barring the site from accepting more members from Ohio, payment of his legal fees and unspecified damages.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Toledo dismissed the case on the grounds that not only did Doe present no evidence of SexSearch meddling with the girl’s — or any other — profile, but the burden of age verification before sexual relations ultimately fell to him.
In August 2007, Doe filed an appeal in which he argued that because SexSearch indicated “all users of the site are 18+” and the ISP had the ability to modify user profiles and ban members who turned out not to be as old as they claimed to be, Roe’s presence on the website violated an implied contract between him and SexSearch and invalidated SexSearch’s claim of “safe harbor” under the CDA.
The appellate court found Doe’s arguments not to be legally valid and declined to address underlying CDA issues.
“Because we agree with the district court that Doe’s complaint failed to state a claim, we do not reach the question of whether the Communications Decency Act provides SexSearch with immunity from suit,” the appellate court ruled. “We do not adopt the district court’s discussion of the act, which could read § 230 more broadly than any previous court of appeals decision has read it, potentially abrogating all state- or common-law causes of action brought against interactive internet services.”
The bottom line, defense team member Colin Hardacre told AVN Online, is “online interactive computer services are not liable for third-party communication. That’s exactly what John Doe tried to do. In the end, whether the courts affirm on one ground or another, basically the case is over, unless he decides to go to the Supreme Court — and if he goes, bring it on.”
