Date: 04-12-1999

Case Style: Stephen Barrett, M.D. v. The Catacombs Press, James R. Privitera, M.D., Alan Stang, M.A., Darlene Sherrell, and CDS Networks, Inc.

Case Number: 99-CV-736

Judge: Antwerpen

Court: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Plaintiff's Attorney: Steven A. Bergstein, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Defendant's Attorney: Malcolm J. Cross, Allentown, Pennsylvania; Charles W. Elliott, Easton, Pennsylvania; and Barbara R. Binis, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Description: Diversity of Citizenship Defamation Claim - Plaintiff, a psychiatrist and resident of Allentown, Pennsylvania, brought suit for defamation. Since 1969, plaintiff has been involved in investigating and dealing with many aspects of quackery, health frauds, misinformation and consumer strategy. He has been responsible for writing, co-authoring or editing over 200 publications relation to consumer health. Plaintiff has maintained a computer Web site called QuackWatch, which provides information about quackery, health frauds and consumer decisions. Plaintiff's Web site has received international acclaim, with more than fifty awards and/or favorable mentions in newspapers, magazines and journals throughout the world.

Only about 1% of the Quackwatch Web site addresses the fluoridation debate through its "Fluoridation: Don't Let the Poisonmongers Scare You" page. Plaintiff first became award of the existence of Defendant Sherrell, a resident of Oregon, after she joined the health fraud discussion group co-sponsored by the Quackwatch Web site, which has 300 members from across the country. She joined the discussion list by posting a message on-line for view by the entire discussion group. In the Plaintiff's opinion, when the volume of messages posted became sufficiently large to be unproductive, he posted a message to that effect which was disseminated to the entire discussion group. Ms. Sherrell then apparently attempted to engage Dr. Barrett in a private e-mail discussion about fluoridation.

Subsequently, allegedly defamatory statements appeared on Defendant's Web site. Plaintiff sent Sherrell an e-mail message threatening a lawsuit after seeing her Web site. Plaintiff also claimed that defendant posted defamatory messages on numerous USENET discussion groups about him.

Defendant claimed that she had never been in Pennsylvania for many years. She also claimed that the information that she posted on the World Wide Web "was not targeted to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and that her activity was part of a larger public debate on fluoridation issues. Defendant then moved the court to dismiss plaintiff's complaint pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(2) by arguing that the United States District Court lacked personal jurisdiction over her because of insufficient contacts with the state.

Outcome: Motion sustained finding that defendant did not have sufficient systematic and continuous minimum contacts with Pennsylvania.

Plaintiff's Experts: Unknown

Defendant's Experts: Unknown

Comments: For more information about this case and the elements of personal jurisdiction, see: 44 F.Supp.2d 717 (E.D.Pa. 1999).