An Illinois federal court has considered whether a website which allowed users to post information about housing on the website could be liable as a publisher for postings which allegedly contained content that violated prohibitions contained in the federal Fair Housing Act (“FHA”).Craigslist, Inc. (“Website”) operates a website which allows users to post information about jobs, items for sale, personals, and housing opportunities, among other things. The Website allows postings from both users who are either seeking or offering housing for sale or lease. The users communicate with each other if they are interested in the products or services being offered on the Website.
The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. (“Committee”) is a nonprofit entity supported by a consortium of forty-five law firms. The Committee’s mission is to promote and protect civil rights, especially the civil rights of the poor, ethnic minorities, and the disadvantaged. One of the Committee’s interests is the elimination of discriminatory housing practices by providing education to consumers as well as offering free legal services to those who suffer from illegal housing discrimination.
The Committee filed a lawsuit against the Website for violations of the FHA. The lawsuit alleged that the Website publishes housing advertisements which exhibit a preference, limitation, or discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, and familial status. The FHA makes it illegal to “make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.”
The Committee’s FHA claims related to the Website’s role as a publisher of the allegedly discriminatory statements on the Website. The Committee set forth numerous examples found on the Website in its lawsuit, including: “NO MINORITIES”; “looking for gay latino”; “LADIES PLEASE RENT FROM ME”; “Only Muslims apply”; and “Apt. too small for families with small children”. The Website filed a motion to dismiss the Committee’s lawsuit, arguing that the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) bars the claims made by the Committee because it is a provider of interactive computer services.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the Committee’s claims were barred by the CDA and so dismissed the lawsuit. The CDA contains a provision which states that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The CDA clarifies its effect on other laws by specifically exempting its effect on federal criminal laws, intellectual property laws, and certain federal privacy laws. The CDA does not mention the FHA.
The issue before the court was whether the Website qualified for the CDA’s protections. Courts have ruled that the CDA protects the operators of interactive computer services from liability for third-party content, including when the allegations involved violations of the FHA. The Committee argued that an earlier decision by the Seventh Circuit (the appellate court over this trial court) had suggested, in dicta, that the other courts considering the parameters of the CDA may have granted a wider immunity to the operators of interactive computer services then was intended by the statute. The Seventh Circuit suggested that Congress may not have intended the CDA to encourage the operative of interactive computer services to take no steps to protect the public from harmful content.
The court determined that the plain language of the statute protected operators of interactive services like the Website from all allegations which treated those entities as the publisher of third-party content. Since the Committee’s allegations treated the Website as a publisher of the postings on its which were provided by third-party users, the court ruled that the CDA shielded the Website from these allegations. Therefore, the court ruled in favor of the Website on the FHA claims and dismissed the lawsuit.
Chicago Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under The Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc., No. 06 C 0657, 2006 WL 3307439 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 14, 2006).
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