Ina and David Steiner are suing eBay and others over incidents in 2019 when employees sent them threatening messages, bizarre deliveries including live spiders and a funeral wreath, and tried to attach a tracking device to their car.JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF
Ina and David Steiner, who were stalked and harassed by eBay employees five years ago, are now battling the company over whether they must disclose confidential sources they used to report on the e-commerce industry.
The Natick couple is suing eBay and others over the 2019 incidents when employees from the California company sent them threatening messages, bizarre deliveries including live spiders and a funeral wreath, and tried to attach a tracking device to their car.
The campaign, which resulted in six eBay employees and a contractor pleading guilty to criminal charges, started after the company’s chief executive complained about coverage and comments on the Steiner’s website, Ecommercebytes.
The couple, who have run the website and a newsletter covering eBay for 25 years, charge in the lawsuit that their business was harmed by the harassment, in part because some confidential sources are afraid to speak with them now. They are seeking $12 million in damages for harm to the business, according to court filings.
But lawyers for eBay filed a motion on Sept. 12 seeking to force the Steiners to disclose some confidential sources if they want to include harm from the loss of such sources in the lawsuit. The request covered only the identities of sources who have stopped providing information since the harassment, and disclosure would be limited to eBay’s outside lawyers, according to the motion.
Refusing to reveal the sources “improperly prevents defendants from investigating plaintiffs’ damages claims,” the lawyers wrote. “If plaintiffs wish to protect the confidentiality of their sources behind a claim of privilege, they cannot pursue theories of liability that put the identities of those sources at issue.”
The company declined to comment.
Lawyers for the Steiners also declined to comment. The Steiners replaced their original counsel, Rosemary Scapicchio, in May with a group of lawyers including Marc Diller at Diller Law in Boston.
In a Sept. 20 filing, the attorneys representing the Steiners wrote that they were
surprised by eBay’s request and urged the court to reject the motion. “Plaintiffs are not withholding any information they will rely upon to prove their damages and as such, the entire premise of eBay’s request is a strawman and proves once again why eBay’s motion is moot,” the lawyers wrote. “Plaintiffs are maintaining their source privilege, but they are not withholding any documents or information that eBay is requesting.” US District Judge Patti Saris, who is overseeing the lawsuit, is scheduled to hear arguments Oct. 3 over whether the Steiners are entitled to punitive damages but has not yet responded to eBay’s request to hear arguments about the Steiners’ sources.
Massachusetts does not have a specific law, known as a reporter shield law, protecting journalists from demands like those being made by eBay, said attorney Rob Bertsche, who works on media cases.
“Instead, we have an unnecessarily complicated line of cases explaining why reporters shouldn’t casually be required to disclose their confidential sources and unpublished information,” Bertsche said. “The Steiners are suing because they were grossly harassed by eBay employees. Now eBay is trying to harass them some more by making them put their confidential informants at risk.”
The California company in January settled criminal charges and paid a $3 million
penalty over the 2019 incidents. Current eBay chief executive Jamie Iannone, who took over in 2020, called the conduct of the company’s former employees “wrong and reprehensible” and extended “our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured” when the settlement was announced.
But the company and the couple have been unable to reach a settlement over the civil lawsuit, despite court-supervised mediation.
The Steiners’ lawsuit, originally filed in 2021 and updated last year, charges that eBay and its former employees and top executives, including former chief executive Devin Wenig, were responsible for a scheme “to intimidate, threaten, torture, terrorize, stalk, and silence” the couple, which caused emotional distress and harmed their business.