December 10, 2000
( Fred, Watch your mouth! )
Doctor Wins $675,000 Libel Verdict
Based on Anonymous Net Posting
Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. -- A former doctor at Emory University School
of Medicine has won what his lawyers say is the first libel verdict
based on an anonymous Internet message.
A U.S. District judge on Thursday awarded $675,000 to Dr. Sam
D. Graham Jr., who resigned as chairman of the school's urology
department in July 1998.
In February 1999, Dr. Graham came across a posting on a Yahoo!
message board suggested he had taken kickbacks from a urology
company after giving his department's pathology business to the
company and had been forced to resign.
The message was from "fbiinformant," later determined to be Dr.
Jonathan R. Oppenheimer, who had been a staff pathologist at the
company and now operates his own labs. Calls for comment
Saturday to Dr. Oppenheimer's company, Prost-Data Inc., weren't
answered.
Dr. Graham said he had moved to Richmond to go into private
practice. "Everything I've done in my life was honorable," he said.
"When I was accused of this, it was terrible."
The judge called the Internet messages "about as despicable as any
course of conduct that one could engage in."
Dr. Graham's attorneys, D. Alan Rudlin and J. Burke McCormick,
said they believe the judgment is the first libel verdict based on an
anonymous Internet message. |
