Online slurs lead to flurry of lawsuits

AUSTIN (KXAN/AP) - A defamation lawsuit filed by two Yale Law School students has led to a flurry of claims and counter-claims and one very embarrassed Austin attorney. Construction lawyer Matt Ryan is claiming rather emphatically that he is not the Mathew C. Ryan named in a lawsuit filed by the two Yale law students, both women, who claimed they were anonymously slurred in an online discussion board called AutoAdmit.

According to the lawsuit, the Ryan in question made sexually charged slurs about them on the Web, including a false claim that one of the women had a sexually transmitted disease. While the claims were made anonymously and rather freely, the two women have sought to identify and find the posters, which may possibly lead to formal claims.

The real Ryan named in the lawsuit is a University of Texas student. That Ryan who got a call from the Associated Press reporter this morning, however, is a 40-year-old partner in the downtown law firm of Allensworth and Porter, L.L.P. Ryan also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Law School.

"My name is not spelled the same way, and the lawyer for the two women has issued a press release stating that I am not the person who is the subject of their lawsuit," Ryan said. 

Because of the confusion between the two Ryans, a tabloid Internet site went ahead and posted the elder Ryan's resume. The postings, phone calls and emails, started pouring in. One email told Ryan, "You are so finished as an attorney it's not even funny."

So, ironically, construction attorney Matt Ryan is in the same fix as the two Yale Law School grads -- defamed by a string of slurs from anonymous sources. It all reignites the debate over whether anonymous Internet scribes should be outed -- and held legally responsible -- for malicious online postings.

In fact, AutoAudit founder Anthony Ciolli has filed his own suit against the pair of Yale law school grads, claiming he lost a lucrative job offer when the Yale students sued him, even though they knew Ciolli was not responsible for the postings. Ciolli ultimately was dropped as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Austin Attorney Justin Copeland is working online defamation cases similar to the one the Yale students filed. He says these cases are becoming increasingly common.

"Everybody seems to have this cloak of anonymity, thinking they can hide on the Internet and say whatever they want to say about somebody," Copeland said.