Boston v. Athearn, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 664
The Georgia Court of Appeals held that the parents of a seventh-grade student may be negligent for failing to have their child to delete a fake Facebook profile that allegedly defamed a classmate.
Two seventh-graders created a fake Facebook account for a classmate using a computer supplied by one of the two student’s parents. The students added information, which indicated, inter alia, racist viewpoints and a homosexual orientation. They also invited many classmates, teachers, and extended family members of their classmate to become Facebook “Friends”.
Once the classmate found out, the principal suspended the authors of the prank. However, the fake profile and page remained accessible for 11 months, until Facebook deactivated it.
The parents of the bullied girl accused their daughters’ classmates of defamation and sued also their parents.The parents of one of the students obtained summary judgment, which was then appealed: questions of material fact remain regarding whether the parents breached a duty to supervise their child’s use of a computer and Internet account. The decision was affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Under Georgia law, liability for the tort of a minor child is not imputed to the parents merely on the basis of the parent-child relationship. Parents may be held directly liable, however, for their own negligence in failing to supervise or control their child with regard to conduct which poses an unreasonable risk of harming others. Here, found the Court, the trial court erred in granting the motion for summary judgment because a reasonable jury could find that, after learning of their kid’s misconduct, the parents “failed to exercise due care in supervising and controlling such activity going forward”, and that caused at least part of the injury, especially given the lapse of time in which the account remained active (11 months).
(The appellate court upheld the dismissal of the claim that sought to hold the parents responsible for not removing the defamatory content themselves, because there was no evidence that they could do so unilaterally).
The decision by the Court of Appeals of Georgia is available at: http://online.wsj…
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