Doe v. 2TheMart.com

Citation
Doe v. 2TheMart.com, Inc., 140 F.Supp.2d 1088 (W.D. Washington 2001) (full-text).

Factual Background
In a previous case, the shareholders of 2TheMart.com (TMRT) brought a class action against the company, alleging fraud on the market. To establish a defense that the defendant did not cause any injury to the plaintiff, TMRT issued a subpoena to a local internet service provider, Silicon Investor/InfoSpace, Inc. (InfoSpace), on which TMRT has an Internet bulletin board, seeking to obtain the identities of twenty-three users who have posted on the TMRT bulletin board unfavorable messages about the company. InfoSpace Informed these users of receipt of the subpoena. One of the users moved to quash the subpoena under a pseudonym John Doe (Doe), alleging that enforcement of the subpoena would violate his or her First Amendment right to speak anonymously. This motion to quash is the subject of the present case.

This matter comes before the Court on the motion of J. Doe (Doe) to proceed under a pseudonym and to quash a subpoena issued by 2TheMart.com (TMRT) to a local internet service provider, Silicon Investor/InfoSpace, Inc. (InfoSpace). The motion raises important First Amendment issues regarding Doe's right to speak anonymously on the Internet and to proceed in this Court using a pseudonym in order to protect that right. Plaintiff moved to proceed under a pseudonym and to quash a subpoena issued by defendant to a local internet service provider, in a shareholder derivative action alleging fraud on the market.

Trial Court Proceedings
The trial court granted Doe’s motion to quash the subpoena. The trial court supported Doe’s contention that TMRT has no right to discover the identity of the anonymous users on the InfoSpace website.Although the court did not find suitable federal court authority on the issue of a third-party seeking through a civil subpoena to reveal the identities of anonymous Internet users, the court maintained that the anonymity of Internet speech is protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, when requesting to identify anonymous users, the litigants are required to show that the need for the users’ identification information outweighs the users’ First Amendment rights. The court also held that in the case that the anonymous Internet user whose identity is being subpoenaed is also the defendant of the underlying litigation, the plaintiff is required to show that they are bringing the lawsuit in good faith, as well as the compelling need for the discovery of the identifying information.

Since in this case the anonymous user is not the defendant, but is instead a non-party witness in the underlying litigation, the trial court chose to set a higher standard for disclosing the identity of the anonymous non-party. In particular, the trial court considered the following four factors to decide whether the subpoena should be issued:


 * 1) Was the subpoena brought in good faith? The trial court found that there was no clear evidence to show that TMRT brought the subpoena in bad faith or for an improper purpose. The reason that TMRT brought the subpoena was to defend against a shareholder class action lawsuit. However, the information that the original subpoena sought for discovery was extremely broad, which required to disclose not only personal emails but also other personal information that has no relation with the lawsuit. Therefore, this disregard for privacy protection and First Amendment right of the Internet users weighed against TMRT.


 * 1) Is the claim or defense for which the information is sought a core part of the case? The trial court held that the information sought by TMRT is associated with only one of 27 defenses and that this single defense goes far from the core of the matter. Therefore, the second factor weighs against TMRT as well.


 * 1) Is the identity information of the anonymous user directly and materially relevant to that claim or defense? The trial court held that TMRT failed to show that the identity of the anonymous InfoSpace users is directly and materially related to any core defense. Their identity is not necessary to further the litigation to proceed.


 * 1) Is there any other source from which the required information is available? The trial court held that TMRT may obtain the required information by reading the archived chat room documents and comparing the timing of the relevant statements with the timing of fluctuations in the TMRT stock price. Thus, TMRT can obtain the information in another way without invading the Internet users’ First Amendment rights.

After analyzing and weighing these four factors, the trial court held that TMRT failed to show that the identities of these anonymous Internet users were directly and materially relevant to the core defense in the litigation, and thus the subpoena should not be issued. Therefore, Doe’s motion to quash the subpoena was granted.