Three members of the Connecticut State University American Association of University Professors petitioned the court this week to help them discover the identity of individuals posting allegedly libelous statements on a blog for Southern Connecticut State University adjuncts.
The bill of discovery filed by plaintiff’s, Caryl Schiff-Greatorex, Stephen Greatorex and Linda Cunningham, seeks information from Google, the corporation that owns and operates Blogger which hosts the blog.
The lawsuit says that on April 26, 2007 an unknown individual posted comments on the blog about the plaintiffs that were “false and defamatory.” The comments alleged one of the plaintiffs received a salary increase because she was having sexual relations with another CSU-AAUP employee.
The following day another unidentified individual alleged one of the plaintiffs was fired from another job and hired by the CSU-AAUP because she was friends with one of the board members. Yet another individual that same day alleged the plaintiffs were “cooking” the books.
Click here to read the statements mentioned in this lawsuit.
According to the blog it was started “for all SCSU adjuncts who are interested in bettering their working environment. Hopefully by sharing our concerns, we can accomplish what has not been done in the past. However, only by voicing our concerns to each other can we hope to invoke change. Our course schedules and other commitments make it difficult to communicate – thus this blog.”
The lawsuit was filed in Hartford Superior Court by the plaintiff’s attorney Daniel Klau of Pepe and Hazard, LLP.