Davis v. Google

Cherie Davis, mother of 2006 gold medal winner Shani Davis, the first African American speed skater to make the U.S. Olympic team, sued Google, Inc. in Illinois state court, seeking an injunction requiring the company to take down a blog post written by deceased sports blogger Sean Healy.

Healy published the disputed post in 2006 on his blog, Unknown Column, which is hosted on Google's Blogger service.  In the post, Healy repeated the claim, reported at the time by some mainstream media outlets, including The Associated Press and Chicago Tribune, that Cherie Davis had accused the U.S. Speedskating Federation of racism. (These reports are no longer available online, but The Age, an Australian news outlet, is still carrying a similar story.)  Healy subsequently died of cancer in 2007.  

In her complaint, Davis alleges that Healy's post was false and defamatory, that she cannot bring a lawsuit for damages against Healy because of his death and apparent lack of a probate estate, and that Google "would not be prejudiced by an order enjoining it from continuing to post Healy's statement on Healy's blog, as [Google] has no interest, economic or otherwise, in continuing to post Healy's statement."  Davis seeks an injunction requiring Google to take down Healy's post, as well as payment of legal expenses.