Online Threat Case Settled

Four years after derogatory material was posted about them in an online law school discussion forum, two former Yale Law students have reached a settlement in their case against about two dozen anonymous online posters.

The settlement marks the conclusion of a two-year lawsuit in which the two students alleged that these individuals posted sexually harassing and threatening information on AutoAdmit, a message board utilized by law students and employers.

The two students—Heide Iravani and Brittan Heller—claimed that the postings resulted in “negligent infliction of emotional distress” and caused one of them to lose a legal internship.

“Our clients were happy with the settlement and felt that they had done the right thing by pursuing this case, being active instead of passive in the face of attack,” David N. Rosen ’65, a professor at Yale Law School and one of the womens’ attorneys, wrote in an e-mailed statement to the Crimson.

He declined to disclose the terms of the settlement.

Rosen added that the key to the case was tracking down the posters in order to discover their identities and hold them accountable for their actions.

But Marc J. Randazza—a representative of Anthony Ciolli, one of the defendant who was dropped from the case early on—said that he disagreed with how the case was carried out.

“You don’t just lash out at everyone you can get your hands on,” he said. “It’s the difference between firing a rifle at a deer and firing a machine gun to hit everything.”

David S. Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School Berkman Center, said that the lawsuit offered two important lessons.

“The first is that pockets of true anonymity online are very rare and individuals should govern themselves with that in mind,” he said. “Second is how blunt a lawsuit really is as a tool to fix what the plaintiffs in the case wanted to fix.”

But for some individuals, the case does not appear to be over.

Randazza said that Ciolli filed a complaint in 2008 alleging an abuse of legal procedure.

“Mr. Ciolli has nothing to lose, and now he is a plaintiff against these women,” he said.