Dirksen Federal Courthouse, Chicago
CHICAGO — A federal appeals panel has threatened sanctions and potential discipline against the lawyers for a man who launched an unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against women regarding comments they made on a dating website.
In May 2025, U.S. District Judge Sunil Harjani dismissed the complaint of Nikko D’Ambrosio, whose allegations centered on what Harjani called “online women-only groups like ‘Are We Dating the Same Guy?’ where they ask other women for information about men they are considering dating.”
D’Ambrosio alleged privacy violations and defamation, doxxing, product liability and unjust enrichment, among other claims, with the targets including “anyone remotely associated with those posts for all possible, imaginable claims, including the woman who dated him and her parents, women commenting on posts, the operators of the Facebook group and Facebook itself.”
Harjani said “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” — owned by Spill The Tea — operates across multiple social media platforms, uses geographic subdivisions and has a Chicago subgroup with about 100,000 members on the invitation-only Facebook site. The complaint includes posts from a woman who went on a couple of dates with D’Ambrosio who included screenshots of their text interactions — including an angry profane text D’Ambrosio allegedly sent to that woman — then took down the posts and reshared them anonymously. D’Ambrosio also alleged another group member posted a news article about a different man charged with criminal sexual assault in an attempt to link him to those allegations.
D’Ambrosio challenged the dismissal before the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge David Hamilton wrote the panel’s opinion, filed May 15; Judges Michael Brennan and Michael Scudder concurred.
Hamilton clarified that D’Ambrosio properly identified the home states of all named defendants, none of whom live in Illinois, but did not do so for any of the women whose names he did not know, and “to ensure complete diversity and with this court’s leave,” he dismissed the appeal as to those defendants.
The panel first explained why Judge Harjani properly dismissed claims under the Illinois Right of Publicity Act, saying the complaint lacked sufficient allegations “any defendant used his likeness for a commercial purpose,” including Facebook owner Meta, because “a free-floating profit motive is not enough. … Meta did not have a commercial purpose in terms of the IRPA merely because it displayed advertisements for products or services unrelated to the posts on the same page with them.”
With regards to Spill The Tea, Hamilton noted the complaint didn’t support D’Ambrosio’s contention the company specifically profited off his likeness or the attention surrounding the posts he challenged. While D'Ambrosio cited federal district and appellate court rulings finding an “unmistakable commercial function” when supermarket chain Jewel-Osco famously posted an ad in Sports Illustrated to congratulate Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan on his selection to the basketball hall of fame, the panel said D’Ambrosio's case is in a different category.
That legal history, Hamilton wrote, “does not support the conclusion that the (Spill The Tea) defendants’ solicitation of funds in a manner not directly connected to the posts about D’Ambrosio, merely a few of thousands concerning many other men, could amount to the ‘public use or holding out of’ his identity ‘for the purpose of fundraising.’ The case addressed a completely different issue, and D’Ambrosio’s name and likeness do not have the marketing value remotely comparable to Michael Jordan’s.”
Hamilton framed D’Ambrosio’s doxxing allegations as “classic ‘shotgun pleading,’ parsing what exactly he alleges as to each particular defendant’s state of mind is not easy.” He further said D’Ambrosio made no effort to show how the post about a bad date was “intended to put him in reasonable fear of death, bodily injury or stalking. Nor does he explain how posting her impressions of D’Ambrosio as a date and a screenshot of a vile text message he sent her to a Facebook group of women sharing stories about men they have dated accomplishes that purpose.”
Although the panel acknowledged the complaint supposers the reasonable inference Spill The Tea “recklessly encourages users to post sensational content regardless of its potentially tortious nature,” it also said there isn’t a way to stop anything alleged within the group from being shared elsewhere, and furthermore the complaint itself doesn’t allow a finding of reckless disregard of a risk specific to D’Ambrosio’s safety.
The panel then turned from the merits of that claim to D’Ambrosio’s opening brief itself, which attorney Aaron Walner wrote and the judges found to be rife with errors, including claims of precedent without citation, misquoting from cited cases and misstating liability standards and state laws.
“These mistakes and fictitious quotations bear the hallmarks of the misuse of generative artificial intelligence,” Hamilton wrote. “The website of Trent Law Firm, P.C., where D’Ambrosio’s attorneys both practice, boasts of the firm’s extensive incorporation of artificial intelligence into all areas of its representation. … Submitting fictitious quotations to a court, regardless of how they are generated, is obviously inconsistent with the standards of conduct this court expects from attorneys practicing in this court and the standards of appellate briefing imposed by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28.”
Shifting to D’Ambrosio’s common allegations defamation, false light, civil conspiracy, negligence and products liability, the panel said all the claims failed. It agreed with Judge Harjani as to probable innocent readings of challenged statements, said D’Ambrosio failed to plead a specific financial injury and noted D’Ambrosio failed to contest the finding he waived claims by addressing only the merits and not Harjani’s conclusions.
The panel concluded by considering sanctions against D’Ambrosio and his attorneys, saying “this appeal was entirely frivolous at least as to” the woman who made the original post and her parents. The opening brief focused on a comment made by a different user, and didn’t address Judge Harjani’s conclusion that the posts the named woman made in the group were either undisputed fact or unactionable opinion.
“D’Ambrosio and his attorneys failed to advance any conceivable reason for this court to reverse the dismissal of any of his claims against” the woman or her family and ordered him and his legal team to show cause against imposition of sanctions: awarding legal fees and double costs to the woman, fining Walner for misrepresenting the Doxing Act, and ordering Marc Trent to pay the woman “for disputing at oral argument without any evidentiary basis that his client sent the text message she attributed to him.”
The family has until June 1 to submit a statement of costs and fees. D’Ambrosio and Trent Law have until June 16 to object or request evidentiary hearings.
“The clerk of court shall forward a copy of this opinion to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Illinois Supreme Court for any action it deems appropriate,” Hamilton concluded. “To be clear, however, regardless of how the Illinois authorities assess and respond to circumstances like these, this court expects members of our bar to exercise diligence to ensure the accuracy of all factual and legal representations in briefs and other filings. Briefs and other court submissions that include fictitious quotations — inaccuracies discoverable with elementary professional care — are unacceptable and unbecoming members of our bar.”
