Constitutional Law

KingCast is off to Court with standing in KingCast/Jesseman v. Union Leader, Hillsborough South 08-E-093 to see who forged Brian Jesseman's identity.

By Christopher King

a) I have standing pursuant to the case law in the Complaint and Motion, you Honor.
b) I have standing pursuant to the fact that this is a matter of public concern, your Honor.
c) I have standing pursuant to the fact that this is a matter involving fraudulent activity involving a appropriations bill and I'm a New Hampshire resident. Read the comments for more.

2. What makes you so sure you can discover the identity of the tool who forged Brian's identity in support of Martha McLeod's HB 1428 Bruce McKay Highway, in so doing misappropriating his likeness and creating a False Light Invasion of Privacy and criminal Fraud?

a) As noted in the comments section to this post, the Union Leader requires a poster to present an email address and a phone number. I doubt that the poster was sophisticated enough to use a scrambled email address or phone number.
b) The company that manages the Union Leader website is certain to have the IP address of the poster, and forensic technology should allow us to figure out where that post was (ill)conceived.

Also, with regard to the issue on non major-media access to courtrooms that KingCast pioneered back in 1996 the NH Supreme Court agreed with KingCast in January, 2008. Attorney Sullivan is well aware of that. Read the story.

KingCast: We gon' do what we need to do.

POST HEARING UPDATE:
ORDERED: Parties to submit briefs within 10 days for final order. Defendant, by and through Kate Sullivan, Esq. argued that KingCast does not have standing and that Plaintiff Jesseman can't prove the underlying allegations so he's not entitled to the IP address and contact information. She related the line of cases holding that anonymous Defamatory comments are not actionable.

Here's her Biggest Problem:

This is not a Defamation case. It is an Intellectual property case. Someone misappropriated Brian Jesseman's Intellectual property, and as such the relevant case law is that body of law pertaining to record companies suing to obtain the IP addresses of people who use their Intellectual Property without license. See ELEKTRA ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, INC. v. DOES 1-9 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23560 (U.S. SDNY 2004). Accord Laface Records, LLC v. Does 1-5, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72225 (U.S. WDSD Michigan, Sept. 27 2007) (Copyright infringement allegation compels production of IP addresses and names). More on this later.

As to standing, I explained to His Honor that his own ruling in another case granting KingCast the right to video in court (see video in comment #1) is that whether or not someone is a valid journalist is to be handled on a case-by-case basis. In this case I explained that I was an editor of a statewide newspaper and a reporter for a large Metropolitan daily. Mayor Streeter gave me an award for First Amendment and Right-to-Know activity. Short of being Ed Bradley or Woodward & Bernstein you can't have a stronger background than that.

Attorney Sullivan also tried to delimit the nature of my story by stating that I could still "cover the alleged story by stating that someone forged Mr. Jesseman's name." I told her that she nor the court can tell me what my coverage is going to be.... "what if a State Rep forged Brian's name?" "Well that would be interesting..."

Note: The Union Leader itself wrote "forgery" in the return email to Jeffery Jesseman.

Lastly, Attorney Sullivan argued that Mr. Jesseman would need to file a case against John Doe first, then issue a subpoena to Union Leader. But His Honor pointed out that he is aware of case law in New Hampshire holding that one may pursue an equity case to obtain discovery first in order to sue, and I would agree that the end result is a distinction without difference. For more on my discussion with Attorney Sullivan read the comments. Now then, back to the writing.

Full post as published by Chris King's 1st Amendment Page on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).