Parents could be liable for 7th-grader's fake Facebook page about classmate, appeals court says
Image from Shutterstock.
Whether parents acted appropriately to supervise their son after learning he had created a fake and disparaging Facebook page in the name of a seventh-grade classmate is a question of fact for the jury to decide, a Georgia appeals court says.
The page in question was created in the name of a female student and included sexual and racist comments. The account was connected to more than 70 “friends” and remained accessible to Facebook users for more than 11 months after boy’s parents were made aware of the page by the school principal. It was not removed by Facebook until after Amy and Christopher Boston, the parents of the girl, brought the suit.
In a Friday ruling (PDF), the state court of appeals reversed a dismissal by the Cobb County Superior Court of a defamation lawsuit brought by the Bostons, Courthouse News reports.
While the boy’s parents, Sandra and Michael Athearn, might not have had any reason to suspect earlier that their son had done such a thing, they did have a duty to exercise reasonable supervision over his computer activities once they knew about the Facebook page in the girl’s name, wrote Judge John Ellington in the appellate court’s opinion. He notes that the fake account continued to send out and accept friend requests after the Athearns had been made aware by the school that the fake account existed.
However, the Athearns did not have a duty to take down the page, ruled the judge, because Facebook told the Bostons that only the user who signed up for the account had the authority to remove the page. Therefore he affirmed the that part of the trial court’s dismissal.
