Sagües Guillermo Ernesto y otro c/ Google Inc. y otro s/ daños y perjuicios

Cámara Nacional de Apelaciones en lo Civil y Comercial Federal, Sala III [National Civil and Commercial Court of Appeals, Federal District], Cita Online: MJ-JU-M-95026-AR
Document type
Court Decision
Country
Ignacio
Pereira

Dr. Sagües, President of the San Isidro Bar Association, sued Google for damages and sought a preliminary injunction for the removal of two allegedly defamatory blogs. A preliminary injunction was entered by the judge of the lower court compelling Google to remove from its search results the content related to plaintiff. After “Rodríguez”, the Court of Appeals reviewed and modified the terms of the preliminary injunction on the grounds that it was too broad, effectively imposing an obligation to actively monitor content. Thus, it was the plaintiff’s burden to put the search engine on notice of the infringing content by reporting individualized URLs. After the final judgment, on appeal, the majority held that Google was not liable because it had complied with the modified preliminary injunction by blocking specific URLs as it was ordered by the lower court. In his opinion, Dr. Gusman added that two circumstances had to be met for a search engine to be liable for failing to block or remove content. On the one hand, the allegedly unlawful content had to be duly individualized by the plaintiff. On the other hand, the content had to be harmful to the plaintiff.

Country
Topic, claim, or defense
Defamation or Personality Rights
Freedom of Expression
Document type
Court Decision
Issuing entity
Appellate Domestic Court
Type of service provider
Host (Including Social Networks)
Search Engine or Index
Issues addressed
Notice Formalities
Trigger for OSP obligations
OSP obligation considered
Block or Remove
Monitor or Filter
Type of liability
Primary
Injunctive
Negligence Liability
Tort/Extracontractual Liability
Type of law
Civil
Constitutional
General effect on immunity
Strengthens Immunity
General intermediary liability model
Takedown/Act Upon Knowledge (Includes Notice and Takedown)
Takedown/Act Upon Court Order