An Ohio judge is suing the Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer for $50 million in damages for violating their privacy policy in revealing that the judge’s daughter wrote more than 80 posts on legal matters for their online edition. The newspaper claimed that questions about the propriety of the comments outweighed the privacy interests of the person posting the comments. -db
By Leila Atassi
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cuyahoga County judge sued The Plain Dealer and affiliated companies Wednesday, claiming that they breached a Web site privacy policy when stories linked an e-mail account used by the judge to a series of online comments related to some of the judge’s high-profile cases.
Both Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg and Saffold’s attorney, Brian Spitz, declined to comment on the case Wednesday.
Spitz, in an interview with ABC News, acknowledged for the first time Wednesday the possibility that Saffold posted comments under the moniker “lawmiss,” which was set up on cleveland.com through an e-mail account used by the judge. Saffold last month denied leaving any lawmiss comments, and her daughter took responsibility for all of them.
The suit, filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, claims that newspaper violated cleveland.com’s privacy policy by printing personally identifying information. And the lawsuit claims The Plain Dealer acknowledged that using and publishing registration information breached the users’ expectation of privacy.
Cleveland.com’s privacy policy was written by Advance Internet, a separate entity affiliated with The Plain Dealer. The privacy policy states, “We may also provide access to our database in order to cooperate with official investigations or legal proceedings, including, for example, in response to subpoenas, search warrants, court orders, or other legal process.” The policy goes on to state: “In addition, we reserve the right to use the information we collect about your computer, which may at times be able to identify you, for any lawful business purpose. . .”
The site also reserves “the right to use, transfer, sell, and share aggregated, anonymous data about our users as a group for any business purpose, such as analyzing usage trends and seeking compatible advertisers and partners.”
A Plain Dealer online editor looked up lawmiss’ e-mail address – which was accessible through software used to post stories to the Web site – after lawmiss posted a comment about the mental state of a Plain Dealer reporter’s relative.
The newspaper found the link to an e-mail account used by Saffold and others, and reported for the first time March 26 that more than 80 comments had been made on cleveland.com by lawmiss. Among the postings were comments about cases before Saffold. The judge acknowledged in an interview last month that such comments would have been improper if she had made them.
Goldberg said last month that the issues raised by lawmiss’ comments outweighed any privacy interests of the poster. Goldberg noted that comments made were not about trifling matters. The posts related directly to two death-penalty cases involving Saffold as judge — the 2008 murder trial of former Cleveland firefighter Terrance Hough Jr. and the case of Anthony Sowell, accused of killing 11 women.
“What if it ever came to light that someone using the e-mail of a sitting judge made comments on a public Web site about cases she was hearing, and we did not disclose it?” Goldberg said last month. “These are capital crimes and life-and-death issues for these defendants. I think not to disclose this would be a violation of our mission and damaging to our credibility as a news organization.”
The day the story was published, Sowell’s lawyer requested that Saffold recuse herself from hearing the Sowell case, arguing that the lawmiss comments showed bias. Saffold has not made a decision.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, Spitz argues that the newspaper’s online editors looked up the lawmiss user registration information as a vendetta, because of the remark left about a reporter’s relative.
“Despite encouraging lively debate and opposing opinions, Defendants used tactics to discourage comments that opposed their editorial viewpoint, including, but not limited to selectively removing opinions that were not favorable to Defendants, and allowing personal attacks against their targets to remain,” Spitz writes.
Saffold told the newspaper last month that she had nothing to do with the lawmiss comments.County records show that three of the comments were left at the same time as someone using Saffold’s court computer was visiting cleveland.com.
ABC News reported in an online article Wednesday that Spitz said Saffold might have used the lawmiss handle to comment on stories unrelated to her cases, including stories on the Cleveland Browns. Spitz said he is still combing through the comments with his client.
He acknowledges in the suit that the judge and her daughter shared the cleveland.com account. But he argues that the AOL e-mail address linked to the account was created by Saffold’s former husband, Oscar, for the whole family to use.
The suit claims the newspaper called upon legal experts and the Ohio Supreme Court’s disciplinary counsel to inquire about the ethical implications of Saffold’s participation on cleveland.com. And the newspaper gathered all of the comments posted by lawmiss for readers to peruse.
The Plain Dealer’s stories about lawmiss have been controversial with many cleveland.com commenters, who believed they were anonymous when posting on the Web site. Cleveland.com is affiliated with Advance Internet, which now blocks the newspaper from access to the e-mail addresses of commenters.
Even as the lawsuit criticizes the newspaper for revealing the e-mail address linked to lawmiss, it says it expects the defendants to identify all anonymous commenters who criticized Saffold on cleveland.com. The suit lists those commenters as John Does and says they also are defendants.
Spitz, whose law firm is based in South Euclid, filed at least one similar lawsuit in the past, claiming the breach of an online user privacy policy. In July 2008, he represented an elder-care nurse, who said her life had been destroyed after the proprietor of celebrity gossip Web site perezhilton.com divulged her personal and contact information.
Diane Wargo sued Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr. in U.S. District Court in Cleveland for $25 million, arguing that Lavandeira posted her full name, email address and the name of her employer, and encouraged readers to harass Wargo for disagreeing with his opinions.
The case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.