Huon v. Denton

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting portion of defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s action, alleging that defendants’article on their website on plaintiff’s criminal trial and subsequent defamation action against third-party was defamatory, where headline on article stated: “Acquitted Rapist sues Blog for Calling Him Serial Rapist.” Instant headline, even if it defamed plaintiff, was subject to innocent construction rule, which requires court to consider headline along with accompanying article, and content of article made clear that only instance of alleged rape was in case that defendant was acquitted of said charge. Moreover, fair report privilege applied to instant article, which included statement regarding plaintiff’s defense theory, where article appeared to accurately capture gist of what occurred at trial, and where plaintiff made no attempt to explain how description of witness’ testimony mischaracterized what was said at trial. Dist. Ct. erred, though, in dismissing portion of instant defamation complaint concerning one comment made by third-party reader of said article, where: (1) although Communications Decency Act protects publisher of article where said publisher only hosts online forum for third-party users who submit comments about article, plaintiff alleged that defendants encouraged third-party users to defame plaintiff and employed individuals, who authored at least some comments in defendants’ forum; and (2) one comment in forum constituted actionable defamation where author accused plaintiff of being rapist in spite of his acquittal.