Courtesy of The case of Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter vs. Mortgage Specialists Inc (MSI) has reached the New Hampshire Supreme Court. MSI has demanded Implode-O-Meter reveal the identity of one of its sources in a defamation case and Implode-O-Meter refuses.
Please consider New Hampshire Suit Challenges Mortgage Blogger’s Use of Anonymous Sources
The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that calls into question the legal protections available to independent Web sites that cover news.
The case involves mortgage lender Implode-Explode, a Las Vegas-based site launched in 2007 that publishes stories about the meltdown of the mortgage industry.
The dispute began in November 2008 when The Mortgage Specialists Inc (MSI) won a temporary injunction requesting that a confidential document, "2007 Loan Chart," be removed from Implode-Explode’s site, ml-implode.com. MSI also requested the identity of the source and of a commenter, "Brianbattersby," who they allege made defamatory comments about the company and its president.
Implode-Explode removed both the loan chart and the comments, but refused to either provide the identity of their anonymous sources or promise to refrain from posting the document again in the future. Unsatisfied, MSI pressed for a permanent injunction against the site and won the case in a New Hampshire Superior Court in March 2008.
Aside from those facts, nearly everything else about the case remains in dispute. During their extended 15-minute presentations before the court, the two lawyers called on precedents from Dendrite International v. Does and The New York Times v. United States to argue their claims of anonymous sources and confidential documents, and what constitutes a real journalist.
Jeremy Eggleton of the Orr & Reno, the firm representing Implode Explode, spoke first, calling the injunction a case of prior restraint and a violation of the "basic principals of the First Amendment," that, "tramples on the rights" of his client to speak freely.
Alexander Walker of Devine Millimet & Branch, speaking for MSI, dismissed the First Amendment concerns as a red herring in the case. "This is not the Pentagon Papers," he said. "They [Implode Explode] are not journalists."
According to Sam Bayard, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, and
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