{"id":2392,"date":"2014-01-21T23:46:08","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T23:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=2392"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:57","slug":"ninth-circuit-bloggers-protected-by-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/ninth-circuit-bloggers-protected-by-first-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninth Circuit: Bloggers Protected by First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 17, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled<\/a> that bloggers have the same first amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation.\u00a0 The case, Obsidian Finance v. Fox<\/i>, was brought by<\/a> Kevin Padrick, a bankruptcy trustee at Obsidian Finance Group<\/a>, and Obsidian against blogger Crystal Cox after Cox wrote a blog post accusing Padrick and Obsidian of fraud, money-laundering, corruption, and other illegal activities.\u00a0 In 2011, a jury awarded $2.5 million to the plaintiffs.\u00a0 On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed and ordered a new trial because the district court\u2019s jury instruction applied an erroneous standard.<\/p>\n

\u2018As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The legal standards for the level of fault necessary in defamation claims were set by New York Times v. Sullivan<\/i><\/a> and Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0 In those cases the U.S. Supreme Court held that the standard depends on whether the plaintiff is a public or private figure.\u00a0 Where the plaintiff is a public figure, a finding of actual malice is required.\u00a0 Where the plaintiff is a private figure, only a finding of negligence is required.\u00a0 Both Sullivan<\/i> and Gertz<\/i> involved media defendants.\u00a0 However, according to the Ninth Circuit, bloggers writing about matters of public concern are afforded the same benefits of these rules.
\nThe court wrote<\/a> that \u201cthe protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others\u2019 writings, or tried to get both sides of the story. \u00a0As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable.\u201d\u00a0 The court ruled that Cox\u2019s statements were a matter of public concern, holding<\/a> that \u201cpublic allegations that someone is involved in crime generally are speech on a matter of public concern.\u201d\u00a0 In addition, both Padrick and Obsidian Finance Group are private figures.\u00a0 Therefore, on remand, the jury must consider Gertz<\/i>\u2019s baseline negligence standard in deciding whether to find Cox liable for defamation.
\nThis ruling is a huge win for bloggers and other online speakers.\u00a0 While the rule does have its limits, because it only protects individuals writing about issues of public concern, it recognizes that individuals do not have to be associated with a media outlet to be afforded First Amendment protections.\u00a0 UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh, who represented Cox on the appeal, also warns<\/a> \u201cthat the court\u2019s reasoning is limited to First Amendment protections; it doesn\u2019t discuss state or federal statutes that provide extra protection to the \u2018media\u2019 or to other subsets of speakers.\u201d\u00a0 So, while bloggers are not equitable to media under all laws, the Ninth Circuit ruling assures bloggers that they are protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 17, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that bloggers have the same first amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation.\u00a0 The case, Obsidian Finance v. Fox, was brought by Kevin Padrick, a bankruptcy trustee at Obsidian Finance Group, and Obsidian against blogger Crystal Cox after Cox wrote …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7528,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions\/7528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}