Editor's Note: This article has been updated to note the case was dismissed without prejudice on March 5, 2015.
A defamation suit stemming from a domestic dispute over a woman's alleged use of web sites to out a woman who was allegedly having an affair with her now ex-husband has been dismissed from federal court.
The case was dismissed without prejudice on March 5, 2015, by U.S. District Judge James Holderman.
A Cook County plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, filed suit on March 3, 2014, against Amberin Wahid of Texas, who discovered her husband and Doe had some sort of relationship after she went through his email.
"The Defendant's wrongful conduct was so outrageous that it cannot be tolerated by civilized society," the suit states. "The Defendant's wrongful conduct rises to a level of behavior beyond all possible bounds of decency."
Doe claims Wahid improperly accessed her husband's email, where she found communications, including photos, between the two of them. According to the suit, that's when things got loud.
Wahid allegedly sent Doe the first of a number of emails at 11:52 a.m. on Dec. 4. That email, the suit states, contained "threatening language, private information about the plaintiff, and numerous false statements."
"In the 11:52 a.m. correspondence, [Wahid] indicated she had viewed private photographs of [Doe] that had been sent to her husband," the suit read. "[Wahid] threatened to disclose private photographs of [Doe] to [Doe's] co-workers."
Doe contended she received two other similar emails before Wahid started calling her a cheater in public.
And then on Dec. 20, Wahid posted about Doe on ComplaintsBureau.com, a website that publishes complaints about professional services, alongside defamatory statements accusing people, generally women, of cheating or being loose.
Wahid, according to the suit, published a private photograph of Doe's and listed her by name on the site, accusing her of emotionally trapping Wahid's husband and seducing him.
The suit alleged Wahid posted similar accusations the next day on websites CheaterCentral.com and ShesAHomewrecker.com, where she published private information, photographs and false statements about Doe.
Wahid said, among other things, that Doe "caused [Wahid's] husband to be poisoned against [Wahid] and his children," that she had caused him to leave his family, and that he was ruining her financially, all of which Doe asserted were false statements.
"As a result of [Wahid's] conduct and publication of the private photographs and the false and defamatory statements casting her in a false light, [Doe] has suffered and continues to suffer damages including, but not limited to, harmed reputation, embarrassment, invasion of privacy, mental anguish, trauma, and emotional distress," the suit read.
Doe's suit accused Wahid of defamation, false light, intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts and intentional affliction of emotional distress. It also alleged violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communication Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Illinois Eavesdropping Act.
Doe sought statutory, compensatory and punitive damages and injunctive relief in the form of removing the posts from the websites.
Doe is being represented by Chicago attorney Charles Lee Mudd Jr. of Mudd Law Offices.