ROBERT CARBONE v. WULF KAAL; RAPHAEL BAUMANN; MICHAEL STEUER; OPEN SOURCE STANDARDS ASSOCIATION; EMERGING TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION; JOHN and JANE DOES 1–35 - Articles

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ROBERT CARBONE v. WULF KAAL; RAPHAEL BAUMANN; MICHAEL STEUER; OPEN SOURCE STANDARDS ASSOCIATION; EMERGING TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION; JOHN and JANE DOES 1–35

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Jun 20, 2025

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ON BRIEF: Lindsey E. Sacher, Spencer E. Krebs, TUCKER ELLIS LLP, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant

Attorneys 2: ON BRIEF: Kevin T. Shook, Zackary L. Stillings, FROST BROWN TODD LLC, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellees.

Judge(s): GILMAN, DAVIS, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus

MATHIS, Circuit Judge. Robert Carbone, who lives in Connecticut, sued two Swiss organizations and several individuals who live in California, Illinois, and Switzerland for defamation and other tortious conduct. Carbone was a member of the two Swiss organizations. He claims that the defendants used websites to publish defamatory statements about him and to facilitate his removal from the organizations. He decided to file suit in Ohio. Why Ohio? Because the Swiss organizations maintained servers in Ohio that hosted the organizations’ websites. So Carbone’s theory is that the allegedly improper statements about him would have passed through the servers in Ohio on the way to their destination. Nothing else connected any of the parties to Ohio. The district court dismissed Carbone’s complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. We affirm.

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