CINCINNATI, OH — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on October 24th heard oral arguments in the case of a consumer who seeks to hold adult dating site SexSearch, it officers and business partners accountable for his arrest on child-rape charges. Lead counsel for the defendant said he remains confident the court will affirm a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit.“The panel was very receptive to our arguments regarding the lack of any guarantee that all persons on the site are 18-plus,” Gary Jay Kaufman of The Kaufman Law Group said in a statement. “Only one person in the world had the responsibility to verify that girl’s age, and it was John Doe. I expect the panel to agree.”
The suit was filed in April 2007 after an Ohio man 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.
The man, who is referred to as John Doe in court documents, 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.
After the lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. district court in Toledo, OH, Doe filed an appeal in August 2007.
In the appeal, “John Doe argued that the content of Jane Roe’s profile is not the issue; rather it’s the fact that a minor was on SexSearch at all was a breach of the parties’ contract,” Colin Hardacre, also of The Kaufman Law Group, told AVN Online. “But that’s just not the case. Mr. Kaufman made clear during his time before the Court that the real reason John Doe brought this suit was because he got caught. If he hadn’t been arrested for having sex with this child, this case would never have been filed. Any argument to the contrary is absolutely disingenuous and the panel responded very favorably to that point.”
