Plaintiff Not Required to Anticipate CDA 230 Defense

A defense of federal immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was not sufficient to dismiss a pet food company’s claim against an advertising agency for building a website that displayed defamatory content, in view of the fact that CDA immunity is an affirmative defense that a plaintiff is not required to plead around, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri held April 20 (Nestle Purina PetCare Co. v. Blue Buffalo Co., 2015 BL 111291, E.D. Mo., 4:14-cv-00859-RWS, 4/20/15).

Judge Rodney W. Sippel said that even if the pet food company was ...