Bonnie E. Eskenazi

When a special effects company client's industry rival made anonymous defamatory remarks to potential customers via email, Eskenazi found herself in a case that stands at the intersection of new technology and long-standing due process rights. Seeking to learn the rival's identity, she filed a John Doe action in Los Angeles County Superior Court and asked to take discovery to find out whether the defendant wished to remain hidden. "We based a subpoena on the email address, which we served on the ISP," she said. "That gave the defendant 15 days to seek to quash."

The court denied the motion to quash. Instead of coming forward to fulfill the judge's order that he appear for a deposition, the defendant then attempted to file an anonymous anti-SLAPP motion and even tried to file an anonymous affidavit.

"That was an unsigned, redacted, anonymous declaration, which the judge refused to entertain," Eskenazi said. "But from it we got the defendant's concession that he is a competitor."

That let Eskenazi add unfair competition claims to her defamation complaint. But the anti-SLAPP move, which the judge denied, gave the defendant an automatic right to appeal, and the case is now before a state appellate panel. "The game here is that John Doe wants to drag things out as long as possible, in the hopes that data on his identity will go away." Lawyers call the search for an anonymous Internet defendant "following the breadcrumbs," but those crumbs can disappear through multiple layers of cyberspace over time.

The case pits unfair competition laws against freedom of speech. "You can't just lie about the competition in the state of California, then wrap yourself in the First Amendment," Eskenazi said. "It's hard to litigate if you don't know who is on the other side."

Meanwhile, Eskenazi continues to serve as outside general counsel for Bob Marley's estate. That got interesting in 2015 when she negotiated a groundbreaking cannabis branding deal that she said the notoriously pro-ganja reggae singer would applaud. The Marley Natural line of marijuana strains went on sale in the U.S. in February, via a New York startup funded with Silicon Valley cash. "There was a big launch party here," Eskenazi said, "but I was out of town."

John Roemer