Dawn L. Hassell, Plaintiffs and Respondents v. Ava Bird, Defendant; Yelp Inc., Objector and Appellant.

Summary

The court held that federal statutory immunity barred enforcement against Yelp of an order requiring it to remove user-generated reviews that had been found defamatory in a case brought only against the user who posted them. Although plaintiffs obtained a valid default judgment and injunction against Bird, their decision not to name Yelp as a defendant could not achieve indirectly a remedy that section 230 would have prohibited directly. The judgment was therefore reversed insofar as it required Yelp to remove the reviews, and the matter was remanded for appropriate further proceedings.