Overbroad Injunction Used to Try to Vanish Articles About Daughter’s Property Lawsuit Against Father
Alex Daoud had been mayor of Miami Beach from 1985 to 1991, but was then convicted of bribery and various other charges. Some years later, he arranged a real estate deal together with his daughter, Kelly Hyman (a lawyer and occasional political commentator)—but that went bad, and led her to sue him. The case dragged on for years, and unsurprisingly got a good deal of media coverage, such as in the Miami Herald, on the local CBS affiliate, and in the Real Deal (South Florida Real Estate News).
Hyman also alleged that Daoud or people working with him had posted various derogatory things about Hyman and her family (which includes her husband Paul Hyman, a retired federal bankruptcy judge), at sites named “atrociousattorney.com,” “avariciousadulteress.com,” “despicabledaughter.com,” and the like. As a result, the parties entered into an Agreed Order to Take Down Internet Posting Related to Kelly Hyman, Paul G. Hyman, Jr., [and other family members], in which Daoud was ordered to remove such posts.
So far, that’s fine; parties are generally entitled to enter into such agreements. But here’s the twist: After imposing the obligations on Daoud (who was a party to the agreement), the order went on to purport to bind third parties, who weren’t parties (and to my knowledge weren’t even notified that their rights were being adjudicated):
FURTHER ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that within ten (10) of being furnished a copy of this Order any internet-related services, internet service provider, host provider and/or search engine shall
remove and cause to be removed from any Site (
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