Judge: Misleading Website Lawsuit Lives On

When a local activist hijacked the names of his political enemies to create election websites that redirected visitors to his preferred candidates in 2012, it was not protected free speech, a judge has ruled.

In the heat of last fall's Capistrano Unified school board election, Chris Korpi, a volunteer with a political action committee called Capistrano Unified Children First, bought websites named after anti-incumbent forces. Visitors to the sites were automatically transferred to Children First's website or Korpi's favored candidates.

For instance, juliecollier.com sent people to the website for incumbent Gary Pritchard. (Collier is an education reform advocate who runs the Parents Advocate League group.)

When Collier later sued Korpi, he claimed his actions were political speech protected by the First Amendment.

Orange County Superior Court Judge John C. Gastelum said the legal equivalent of “no way.”

Protected speech discusses a candidate’s qualifications for office, Gastelum wrote. But Korpi “obtained domain names which made it appear that his ‘commentary’ came from [Collier]," the judge said.

Korpi said in court papers that he registered the Collier domain name in anticipation of her running for school board. However, Collier didn’t live in any trustee area that had an open seat in November 2012.

Had Korpi's arguments persuaded, Collier's lawsuits would have been stopped in its tracks. Instead, it moves forward.

The judge did back off on remarks made in his tentative ruling on the case, namely that the bogus websites may have constituted fraud. Because Korpi would have had to meet a two-step requirement to get the lawsuit dismissed – and he did not meet the first – there was no reason to discuss the second prong, which is where the judge’s previous comments about fraud came in.

Korpi’s attorney, Robert Sall of Laguna Beach, took that as a victory.

“The change in the tentative ruling deleting other findings is a major setback for Ms. Collier’s claims,” Sall said.

Collier’s attorney, Wayne Tate of Laguna Hills, sees it differently.

“The denial of the motion is a great victory on our side and a crushing blow on his [Korpi's] side because now he has to face the claims in court,” Tate said.

Sall said he will appeal the ruling.

Meanwhile, Bill Perkins, who challenged Pritchard in the November elections, has dropped a similar lawsuit against Korpi.