Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

I have been receiving harassing emails containing defamatory statements about myself at work. The emails came from an anonymous gmail account. Since gmail does not reveal the actual IP address of the original sender, my employer was not able to find out more about the sender of said emails other than that they were sent via one of Google's servers.

I still want to find out who the sender of the emails is and know that in order to obtain the sender's IP address I would have to file a "John Doe" suit with an attached subpoena to the ISP (Google) to reveal the sender's IP address. Following are my questions:

1. What kind of complaint do I file against John Doe? "Defamation of Character"?

2. What wording do I use in the attached subpoena to ISP requesting information about gmail account holder?

Thank you!


Asked on 9/24/11, 6:33 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Anthony Roach Law Office of Anthony A. Roach

You don't have a case for defamation if the e-mails are being sent to only you. Second, if the e-mails are being sent to a third party, you would have to show that you have damages, such as loss of employment, etc.

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Answered on 9/26/11, 10:59 am


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