Maldives Scuba Diving v. Scubaboard.com

The case
On January 29, 2010, Maldives Scuba Diving, PVT.LTD (http://www.maldivesdivetravel.com/contact_us), and Gundi Holm filed a lawsuit in United States Federal Court for damages against Intermedia Publications, Inc., Brian Verbonac, and users of Scubaboard.com (http://scubaboard.com/forums/matrix/). The complaint asked for 10 million US dollars in damages. Scubaboard responded to the lawsuit on or about March 20, 2010 as noted in the reference.
Background of the accident that led to the case
The basis of the lawsuit is the damage allegedly done by users of an online internet forum for scuba divers to a scuba diving travel agency owned by the plaintiffs and to her reputation as an individual.
In May 2008, an accident occurred on a liveaboard boat called the Baani Adventurer in the country of the Maldives in which a Russian diver died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to "incorrect handling and servicing of the compressor system which led to the contamination of the breathing air when filling the cylinders". In addition to the death, 9 other guests and crew members also suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. Ultimately, a local Maldivian who filled the tanks was arrested.
The accident was reported in the media as well as discussed in several internet forums including ScubaBoard.com.
Much of the discussion on the ScubaBoard.com forum focused on who was the responsible party. Many of those posting on the forums felt that the plaintiffs were responsible. However, in the plaintiff's suit, they claim they were nothing more than the travel agent for the diving trip and the local crew was responsible for safety. This claim is contrary to statements made by the plaintiffs to clients and in a post made on ScubaBoard where they noted they were "responsible for Baani Explorer/Maldives since October 2004."
The actual relationship of the plaintiffs and the boat has not been independently verified.
The plaintiffs claimed libel and monetary damage, and filed the lawsuit against the owner of ScubaBoard.com, and the members of ScubaBoard.com (Does 1-100 refers to the users of Scubaboard in the docket).
Importance of the lawsuit and Internet freedom
This lawsuit is similar to multiple others filed by different businesses against internet forums (Gallucci v. New Jersey On-Line LLC) or internet file sharing forums (Odex's actions against file-sharing, The Pirate Bay trial) and others. These lawsuits demonstrate the vulnerability of owners and moderators of internet forums, and the vulnerability of businesses and individuals to the freedom of speech and the internet (see internet censorship). This case has been brought to the attention of many forum owners and internet news forums, and perhaps potentially could affect the owner, users, and editors of .org. has faced the challenge before with a similar lawsuit. Law groups have been set up specializing in this area of defense have been noted. Even though most of these lawsuits have been won by the defendants, the costs of defending against them can be exorbitant, especially for small or non-profit forums. The uniqueness of this particular lawsuit lies in the fact that the users of the board (Does 1-100) were also named as defendants.

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