The district court for the Southern District of Texas remanded this Internet libel action to state court. Plaintiff had originally filed suit in state court against Defendant, an Internet site administrator and site author who allegedly posted defamatory material on his website. Defendant had then removed the case to federal court. The federal court rejected two possible grounds for removal. First, it did not have original jurisdiction as the parties were not diverse and no federal question was raised in the complaint. Second, the Communications Decency Act (CDA) did not completely preempt the state law defamation claim because the suit was against an author as well as a site administrator and thus was “consistent” with the CDA. The court quickly dismissed any claims that it might have original jurisdiction in this case, pointing to the lack of diversity of citizenship and absence of a federal question in the Plaintiff’s complaint. Though the Defendant raised the CDA as a defense, removal to federal court based solely on a federal question defense is not appropriate, as established in Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Mottley.
Even if a complaint is grounded solely in state law, a federal court can hear the case if federal law completely preempts the state law. For there to be complete preemption, it must be clear that Congress intended to transfer all jurisdiction from the state courts to the federal courts. The court found that the CDA did not completely preempt state law defamation claims. Section 230(e)(3) of the CDA specifically states that state law “consistent” with the CDA could still be enforced by the states. As long as the Plaintiff’s claims were consistent with the CDA, state jurisdiction remained.
In determining whether the Plaintiff’s claims were consistent with the CDA, the court looked to the capacity in which the Defendant was being sued. Although he was the Internet site administrator, he was actually being sued as the author of the Internet site’s defamatory content. Though the CDA states that providers of interactive computer services will not be treated as speakers of content provided by someone else and will not be held liable for failing to restrict access, it provides no protection for those who author content posted to Internet sites. Therefore, the court found the CDA provides no protection for the author Defendant and the suit may proceed under state law. The court went on to rationalize this by noting that interpreting the CDA to protect author-administrators would mean all an author would have to do to be immune is administer the Internet site where he posted his work.