July 12, 2005

NEWARK - The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Public Citizen announced today that the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court has ruled in favor of free speech and privacy rights, by holding that it was improper for a trial judge to order Scott and Charlene “Charlie” Uhrmann to relinquish their hard drive so the officials they sued could determine whether the Uhrmanns anonymously posted derogatory statements about them on the Internet.

“We are extremely pleased that the Appellate Division vindicated our right to privacy,” said Scott Uhrmann. “Having to turn over personal, financial and other information stored on our computer would have been an inappropriate and rather harsh consequence for engaging in our right to file a lawsuit trying to protect our and our fellow taxpayers’ rights against what we believe to be misuse of public funds by township officials.”

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.

After that ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Public Citizen agreed to represent the Uhrmanns in their request for appellate review of the trial court order. The groups noted that the hard drive contains financial and other personal information and said that the order violated free speech and privacy rights as well as established law on rules of discovery and on anonymous Internet postings.

In a one-paragraph ruling on Friday, July 8, 2005, the Appellate Division held that the requested information was beyond the scope of discovery, not relevant to the case and could lead to the disclosure of personal information.

Richard Ravin, of Hartman & Winnicki, P.C., who was the ACLU-NJ cooperating attorney in the case, said, “This appellate decision is a warning to all litigants and their attorneys, and a reminder to judges everywhere, that computer hard drives are not simply pieces of tangible property – they contain highly sensitive and confidential information of individuals and businesses. A party to a lawsuit is not entitled to inspect and copy such computer hard drives of other individuals simply because those individuals are parties to the same suit.”

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.

“This was a fishing expedition by the public officials and a blatant violation of privacy rights and established law,” stated Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen. “We are pleased that the Appellate Division recognized that.”

The current case is captioned Uhrmann v. Scapicchio..