The attorney representing Board of Aldermen President Ken Hughes has asked a state judge to dismiss a defamation lawsuit against his client.
In a motion for summary judgment filed at Superior Court in Milford, Lori Ann Bloch, of Wolf Horowitz and Etlinger LLC in Hartford, argued that under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Hughes is not legally responsible for comments posted on a now-defunct political blog.
Hughes was the administrator for ​“Connecticut’s Smallest City,” a blog that was published as a subset of the CtLocalPolitics.net in 2007.
This past September, former Derby Board of Education member Renee Luneau sued Hughes and Christopher Bigelow, the owner of CTLocalPolitics.net, claiming they allowed defamatory comments about her to be posted on the forums in 2007.
Luneau’s attorney, William Wynne of Cheshire, has until Aug. 15 to respond to Bloch’s motion.
The Communications Decency Act
The act was written to deal with online pornography.
Since its writing, though, the act has been interpreted to protect online content providers from liability for comments published by third-party authors.
Generally, website administrators and website providers are not responsible for comments posted to their websites, unless the administrator edits the comment in some way.
Bloch argued that Hughes is covered by the ​“broad immunity provided to providers of interactive computer services” under the Communcations Decency Act.
Because Hughes didn’t write or edit the allegedly defamatory comments, Bloch argued, he can’t be held liable for them.
“The conduct falls within the scope of a traditional publisher of content written by other individuals,” Bloch wrote.
Background
In her lawsuit, Luneau says the comments published in September 2007 caused permanent damage to her reputation and good name.
CTLocalPolitics.net stopped publishing in February 2010. In a blog post, Bigelow cited personal reasons and ​“legal baggage” as reasons for the site’s demise.