The addition of hyperlinks to an allegedly defamatory online article does not restart the statute of limitations for defamation, a district court ruled. Applying Kentucky law, the court concluded that Kentucky would apply the single publication rule to online articles, and that under that rule, only a republication of an online article could restart the statute of limitations. The court further concluded that the addition of hyperlinks did not constitute a republication because their addition merely drew the existence of the article to a new audience, it did not present the defamatory contents of the article to that audience. Referring to the legislative intent to limit the time period within which defamation claims could be brought, the court commented: “Methods of access to portions of [a] website can change on a regular basis and links to previous posts on a website are constantly added and taken away from sites. Therefore to find that a new link to an unchanged article posted long ago on a website republishes that article would result in a continual retriggering of the limitations period.”
Salyer v. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 113511 (W.D. Ky. Dec. 4, 2009) Download PDF
