Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Publishing Sex Offender Name
A complaint expressing outrage that a registered sex offender goes into people's homes through his employment with Terminix was sent to me for posting on my web site, ''Terminix - Consumer Alert!'' at http://www.syix.com/emu. According to the complainant, Terminix admits to not doing background checks on their employees; and she provided the link to that state's on-line sex offender registry and the employee's name for people to look up the information for themselves.
The North Carolina ''Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry'' at http://sbi.jus.state.nc.us/DOJHAHT/SOR/Default.htm states, ''Anyone who uses this information to commit a criminal act against another person is subject to criminal prosecution.'' If I post the lady's complaint with its information on my web site, would I be committing a criminal act? Is it legal to publish the name of a sex offender taken from a state's on-line sex offender registry onto another web site? I agree with the complainant that customers should be forewarned to protect themselves and their families; but I am afraid I would be opening myself up to a third lawsuit from this company, a lawsuit from one of its employees, or criminal prosecution from North Carolina.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Publishing Sex Offender Name
You would not be breaking any criminal law by posting it on your web site but I would hate to be you if it turned out there was a mistake in any of the information given to you.
Re: Publishing Sex Offender Name
This is America. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives you the right to publish almost anything so long as it is not false , does not violate a copyright or trademark or is not obscene--and judging from the content on the internet, obscene is defined extremely narrowly. Furthermore, The Freedom in Information Act makes public records availabe to the general public for its viewing. To protect yourself from making a false statement, credit your source, say you are reporting what another source has said. If you hurt terminix bad enough, they may sue you for defamation of character, you would probably win this lawsuit, but it could cost money to litigate.
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