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Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division/Direct
Paul Alan Levy/Public Citizen, Richard Ravin/Hartman & Winnicki
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Public Citizen represent Scott and Charlene "Charlie" Uhrmann in an appeal from a trial court order requiring them to turn over their computer hard drive to public officials they sued. The public officials requested the computer hard drive, which contains financial and other information about the couple, to determine whether they anonymously posted derogatory statements about them on the Internet.
In January 2005, Charlene and Scott Uhrmann sued a current and a former member of the Mount Olive town council, claiming that, as part-time officials, they were not entitled to the medical and dental benefits they received. The Uhrmanns sued to see that the money is returned to Mt. Olive.
The officials claim that the Uhrmanns were responsible for criticisms about them posted in online chat rooms using pseudonyms. However, the officials have not countersued for defamation. Nevertheless, the business owners requested the Uhrmanns' hard drives to determine whether the Uhrmanns did in fact write the postings they felt were defamatory. On May 19, 2005, Judge D. Hunt Dumont denied the Uhrmanns' motion to quash the officials' request to produce their hard drive.
The ACLU-NJ and Public Citizen will explain on appeal that the trial court erred in granting the public officials' request for the Uhrmanns' computer hard drives. The order violates free speech and privacy rights as well as established law on rules of discovery and on anonymous Internet postings.
The ACLU-NJ and Public Citizen previously jointly submitted a brief in Dendrite v. Doe, the case in which the standard for identifying anonymous Internet speech was established. In addition, Public Citizen represented two flight attendants for Northwest Airlines in an appeal from a court order allowing the airline to seize of their hard drives.
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