The "Dendrite test," which came out of Dendrite v. Doe, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. App. 2001), has discouraged lawsuits whose real objective is identifying anonymous speakers. Prior to Dendrite, thousands of lawsuits were filed each year seeking to identify Internet speakers, and enforcement of subpoenas was almost automatic. Since Dendrite, both the number of lawsuits designed to indentify Internet speakers and the automatic nature of the enforcement of those subpoenas has declined due to the broad application of Dendrite. Recently, the court in Warren Hospital v. John Does (1-10), Docket No. A-4119-11T4 ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. April 2013), has limited the application of Dendrite. Like Dendrite, the Warren Hospital ruling has ramifications beyond New Jersey.
In Dendrite, a computer software seller brought a John Doe lawsuit against individuals who had anonymously posted criticisms of the company on a Yahoo! message board. The court rejected one of Dendrite’s requests to compel Yahoo! to reveal the identity of an anonymous defendant. The appellate court upheld the district court’s decision and, in doing so, created the Dendrite test. The test is an assemblage of guidelines for determining the circumstances under which an anonymous Internet speaker may be identified by a third party.
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