DanCrankshaw

O'Kroley v Fastcase Inc Draft

O'Kroley v. Fastcase Inc.
Court	United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee
Full case name	Colin O'Kroley, Plaintiff, v. Fastcase Inc, Google, Texas Office of Court Administration, 11th Court Appeals, Yasni.com, Defendants.
Decided	June 25, 2014
Court membership
Judge sitting	Todd J. Campbell
Case opinions
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17374093310346755005&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

Lead

O'Kroley v. Fastcase (case citation) is a 2014 case concerning online defamation in search results. The plaintiff, Colin O'Kroley, alleged that Google's automated snippet algorithm created a defamatory search result by falsely implying that the plaintiff had been accused of indecency with a child, despite the full text not being defamatory. The court granted Google's motion to dismiss the case, and found that Google had immunity from the defamation charges under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects interactive computer services from being held liable as a speaker or publisher for information provided by a third-party information content provider.

Facts

The plaintiff, Colin O'Kroley, performed a Google search of his own name in August of 2012. Among the search results was an entry that included the snippet:

Texas Advance Sheet March 2012 — Google Books Result books.google.com/books?id=kO1rxn9COwsC. . . Fastcase — 2012. . .indecency with a child in Trial Court Cause N . . . Colin O'Kroley v. Pringle. (Tex. App., 2012). MEMORANDUM OPINION On February 9, 2012, Colin O'Kroley filed in.

This snippet was generated by a Google algorithm, summarizing an ebook page from Fastcase Inc. The defendant alleged that despite the underlying source document not containing any defamatory statements, the action of summarizing the document created defamatory statements. Google's algorithm removed the context in of the O'Kroley v. Pringle and created an implicit association between a case involving indecency with a child and the O'Kroley lawsuit when in reality there was no relation other than being published on the same page of court case summaries. The plaintiff claimed several causes of action stemming from this summarized search result.

Google's Motion to Dismiss

Google subsequently filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Under this motion, while the court must accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true, the complaint must be more than "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action" as determined in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly.

Google argued that under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, as in "interactive service provider" it has immunity from the plaintiff's complaint. Under the statute, if Google satisfies the requirements for being an interactive computer service, then it has immunity for acting as a publisher of information provided by a third-party. O'Kroley argues that the act of summarizing a non-defamatory article into a defamatory summary created new content and turned Google into an information content provider and thus losing its protected status. However, courts have found the immunities provided under the statute as "quite robust." The magistrate judge reviewing the case found that Google's automated editing and summarization process falls under the role of a publisher and thus Google has immunity from liability. Based on this conclusion, the district judge upheld the magistrate's recommendation and granted Google's motion to dismiss the complaint.

O'Kroley v Fastcase Inc Bibliography

Initial complaint

Report and Recommendation

Dismissal Order

Goldman article