The lawsuit filed by Patrick Esfeller objects to five anonymous comments posted on the Web site of the Daily Reveille between February 2008 and January 2009 in response to stories about Esfeller's ongoing legal battles with LSU. He also amended the lawsuit to include an article about the lawsuit published in the Reveille on March 12, which quoted portions of the comments Esfeller contends are libelous.

After enduring negative comments posted about him for more than a year, Esfeller said, the final straw was a comment posted Jan. 10 that referred to him as "Louisiana's next serial killer on the loose."

"This was online, anybody could Google my name and come across that," he said.

Comments on archived stories disappeared from the Web site when the Reveille switched to a new version of College Publisher last fall, but this new comment convinced Esfeller he need to take action to defend his reputation and clean criminal record.

He later amended the lawsuit to also include an article the Reveille wrote about the case, since it included the comments he considered libelous and may lead readers to think the statements are true by calling them "alleged misrepresentations," according to the updated lawsuit.

Reveille editors declined to comment at this point.

The lawsuit also names the LSU chancellor, the university board of supervisors, the communication school dean, the director of student media and the Reveille adviser for their supervisory connections with the student newspaper. The list of defendants originally included College Media Network and its parent company, Viacom, but Esfeller later requested they be removed from the lawsuit.

Web site operators cannot usually be held liable for anonymous comments on their sites because Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects "Internet service providers" from liability for content posted by users. Though courts have widely ruled this protection from liability applies to newspaper Web sites that host comment forums, Esfeller does not believe the Reveille should be considered a liability-free "Internet service provider" since the its editors can choose which comments are posted on the stories.

"As far as I'm concerned the Web site they provide is just an extension of their newspaper," he said. "It would be the same thing as if they were printing these comments in their newspaper."

The Communications Decency Act protects editors from liability in exactly these kinds of situations, said Adam Goldstein, attorney advocate at the Student Press Law Center. Courts had determined that Internet service providers could not be liable for their users' content — just like a telephone company is not liable for what people might say across their wires — and Congress wanted to protect Web site operators that made good-faith efforts to police their forums.

"What he is alleging is what the Communication Decency Act specifically disallows," Goldstein said.

Esfeller said he would rather sue the person or people who made the comments, and he hopes to find out who they are during the discovery process of the case. He said he met with a previous Reveille editor-in-chief, who agreed to take down two comments targeting Esfeller's family but refused to take down any other comments. The newspaper also refused to give him information about the commenters' IP addresses, he said.

Goldstein said there are other legal mechanisms available if Esfeller wants to pursue the commenters. He could file a lawsuit against "John Doe" and then subpoena the Internet service provider for any information it may have about the identity of the defendant.

"If his main goal is to find and punish the person who made these comments, filing the John Doe lawsuit would certainly be a faster way to do it," Goldstein said. "For one thing, it's not precluded by federal law."

Esfeller said he would ultimately like to see the Reveille establish some sort of registration process so editors will be able to tell who is making comments, and pass on that information if necessary.

The lawsuit seeks an order to permanently remove the listed comments and the March 12 article from the Web site. It also seeks an injunction against the Reveille editors to prevent them from printing portions of the challenged comments or approving any further comments about Esfeller on the site.

A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for March 31.