A federal judge awarded a White County woman $1.25 million on Friday in a judgment against a gossip website run by a California man, siding with her claim that she had been defamed by the website.
Malia Stewart filed a lawsuit Oct. 3, 2013, against Dirty World Entertainment Records, doing business as TheDirty.com, and founder and contributor Hooman Karamain, also known as Nik Lamas-Richie.
TheDirty.com, run out of Arizona, is a gossip website that takes user-submitted posts, largely about people who are not famous. The posts are often about women and sexual in nature.
A September 2013 post about Stewart claimed she had children with different men for the purpose of collecting child support, according to court records.
Stewart asked to have the post removed from the website but was told it would not be, according to records.
Stewart's attorney, Lloyd W. "Tre" Kitchens, argued that she was "embarrassed and humiliated because of this publication" and that subsequent comments were "further defamatory and slanderous."
Kitchens argued for compensatory and punitive damages of more than $75,000 each, attorney fees and "other relief the Court deems fitting and proper."
On Friday, in a one-page judgment, U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes wrote that Stewart "has suffered actual damage to her reputation in the community and severe emotional distress," awarding her $250,000 in damages. Holmes also assessed $1 million in punitive damages.
The damages carry a post-judgment interest of 0.18 percent annually.
Karamain originally argued that Stewart's claim against him should be dismissed because he did not have personal jurisdiction in Arkansas. Holmes sided with Karamain in March and dismissed the complaint against him without prejudice.
Stewart then filed a motion for a default judgment against the other defendant -- the website -- in April.
TheDirty.com has been the subject of lawsuits before. One involved former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones, who sued the website for posts about her sexual history, including a claim that she had sex with an entire NFL team.
Friday's order differs from a federal appeals court ruling in that case last year.
In June, a district court decision to award $338,000 in damages to Jones was vacated by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Kentucky, which ruled that Jones could not sue the website's publisher if he did not "materially contribute" to the content, according to appeals court records.
Attorneys for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon, Gawker and BuzzFeed had filed joint briefs against the district court's decision in that case, arguing that the ruling would give "anyone who complains unfettered power to censor speech," according to a joint report by The Associated Press and WLWT, Channel 5, in Cincinnati.
Metro on 01/24/2015