http://caselaw.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=4th&navby=case&no=971523P
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:14:23 -0500
From: Patrick Carome
Subject: Fourth Circuit Rules in AOL v. Zeran
I want to bring to the attention of this group an important
decision issued yesterday by the United States Court of Appeals for
the Fourth Circuit in a case that I argued on behalf of America
Online, Inc. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision in Zeran v.
America Online, Inc. that has been a frequent topic of discussion in
this forum. In particular, the Fourth Circuit held that Section 230
of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. ยง 230) "plainly immunizes
computer service providers like AOL from liability for information
that originates with third parties." In an opinion written for a
unanimous panel by Chief Judge Harvey Wilkinson, the court affirmed a
ruling by the United States District Court for Eastern District of
Virginia that is reported at 958 F. Supp. 1124 (1997). The case
concerned the question of whether AOL may be liable for allegedly
being unreasonably slow to remove a series of allegedly defamatory
messages posted on AOL message boards by an unidentified third party.
The Court of Appeals based its ruling on Section 230(c)(1), which
states that "No 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." The Court of
Appeals also rejected the argument that Section 230 should not apply
in this case because the messages at issue had been posted before the
statute was enacted.
