Court Rules in Favor of Writer in Suit Against Student Blogger

Clarification Appended

A small claims suit filed by a freelance journalist against a UC Berkeley student last fall concluded last week, resulting in the student owing over $7,000.

Lee Kaplan, who defines himself as an investigative journalist and said he has uncovered terrorists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, won the case against UC Berkeley junior Yaman Salahi after a final appeal ruling was released last Wednesday.

Kaplan sued Salahi in small claims court for interfering with business opportunities through defamation after he claimed Salahi posted libelous statements about him on a blog called Lee Kaplan Watch and sent letters to potential employers, which he said resulted in him losing at least one job.

Salahi, who is a board member of Students for Justice in Palestine, said he started the blog to monitor articles published by Kaplan, who writes for the Web magazine FrontPageMag.com and maintains a number of his own Web sites.

“I never really intended to devote much time to it,” Salahi said. “After he started threatening to sue me the very beginning of last year, I started taking it a little more seriously. So I began going through his articles and refuting things.”

Salahi also said he did not send threatening letters to any of Kaplan’s employers.

“What I did do was contact who I thought to be his Web host to file an abuse complaint about material he had posted about me and the student group, Students for Justice in Palestine, claiming that we were affiliated with the American Nazi Party,” he said in an e-mail.

Kaplan, who said he met Salahi after an altercation on campus last May, said he discovered the blog soon after meeting Salahi and was immediately concerned by its contents.

“It wasn’t criticism of my politics or my articles, it became attacks on my personal acts as the journalist,” Kaplan said.

The final appeal was ruled in favor of Kaplan and Salahi was ordered to pay $7,500 plus $75 in fees.

There was no reasoning provided for the ruling, as it is not required in small claims court.

While Kaplan said he is happy with the ruling, he added that he remains unsatisfied with the way the campus dealt with the conflict between him and Salahi, saying that he was not given the student’s address to serve him with court papers.

Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard, who said he could not comment on specific cases involving students, said the campus does not give out student information unless the information itself is subpoenaed.

Salahi said he plans to keep the blog up and has received increased readership since the appeal was decided.

“I’m planning to keep (the blog), there’s nothing that says that I need to

take it down or change anything on it,” Salahi said, adding that he does not have the money to pay the settlement and is now soliciting donations through the blog.

Clarification: June 21, 2007

Monday’s article “Court Rules in Favor of Writer in Suit Against Student Blogger,” may have implied that Lee Kaplan did not subpoena Yaman Salahi’s address from the university. In fact, he did subpoena the address.

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