By DAREH GREGORIAN
June 19, 2008
Go Google yourself.
A Manhattan judge has thrown out a doctor's $100 million lawsuit against the ex-employees he blames for getting his name associated with hard-core pornographic Web sites - and causing his obsession with Googling his own name.
Ever since the trio of ex-employees sued Arden Kaisman for sexual harassment last year, Google searches under his name lead to hundreds of raunchy Web sites.
Kaisman said the three and others "conspired" to get his name linked to the porn sites, and that the anesthesiologist has suffered a drop in business and a peculiar form of mental distress as a result.
"I find myself obsessed with 'Googling' my name," Kaisman said.
"The Internet, the great information equalizer, has been corrupted to hurt me. . . . I'm told I have an 'incurable Internet disease.' "
State Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon was unmoved by Kaisman's affliction and said there's no evidence the former employees are linked to the postings. Even if there was, Kaisman couldn't sue over having his name linked to pornography since the women complained about - and he has admitted to - e-mailing employees "sexually explicit images."
His lawyer, Sidney Segall, said there's a big difference between the types of e-mails his client was sending and the types of sites he's now linked to.
Solomon said there are "qualitative differences" between the sites and Kaisman's e-mails, but sided with the employees.
