We’ve just received word that United States District Court Judge James C. Cacheris issued an order dismissing Fireclean v. Tuohy for defamation, based on personal jurisdiction. Fireclean failed to satisfy the court that the case should be tried in Virginia when Touhy and his Vuurwapen Blog are physically located in Arizona. This also dismisses the case against Everett Baker who is from New Hampshire. This is an interesting precedent for web based writers in particular, who could previously be sued in another state for their writing.
Now, we get to see if Fireclean will pursue the case in Arizona, and perhaps New Hampshire as well. In Arizona the question of corporate personhood is more straight forward and Fireclean may only have to demonstrate negligence rather than malice as well as negligence.
UPDATE: At least he’s consistent. Tuohy even misleads about this. Rather than just telling people why the case was dismissed (jurisdiction), he’s got people believing that the case was dismissed because the Judge said the case had no merit.
