Job Discussion Forums

[Sashadroogie]

This obsession with legal action. Most of the world has only a tenuous rule of law to begin with. There are more serious things to get legal about than a few unkind truths or untruths posted online. No litigation culture outside the US and a few copycat Euro countries.

Rest easy. No drama to be had here.

[nomad soul]

[aaaronr]

It's incredibly difficult to be sued for libel in the U.S. because of the First Amendment. The most famous case is General William Westmoreland suing CBS for a story criticizing how he handled the Viet Nam war.

CBS won.

You're opinion is protected, and the website is cowardly.

[rtm]

[suphanburi]

[Sashadroogie]

Dear deary me! What would the Founding Fathers think of that?

[johnslat]

Can I be sued for libel?

Of course you can - no matter what country you're from and where you are.

"A Virginia woman is in the process of being sued for $750,000 for allegedly writing a bad review of a company on Yelp. Christopher Dietz, the owner of the company, is suing for defamation. He owns a seven-year-old construction company that previously held a good reputation. In her Yelp review, Jane Perez allegedly claims that the company charged her for work not done, damaged her home and stole her jewelry. Dietz claims $300,000 in costs because of her negative review over lost work opportunities, insult, mental suffering, anxiety and harm to the company's reputation. The plaintiff and defendant are rumored to be high school classmates.

Ratings Impact Sales
This company is not the first to sue for a negative review on a website like Yelp. There are a growing number of lawsuits in the United States over posts on websites such as Yelp. With 84 million visitors and 33 million reviews written each month, Yelp is a popular place for consumers to look for information. A Harvard study showed that a one star increase in rating on Yelp yields a 5-9% increase in revenue for a company. This suggests that online reviews are important to a company's reputation and success.

These types of lawsuits are becoming increasingly popular and some lawyers are suggesting that those companies who feel threatened are more likely to file these types of suits. Many lawyers are pursuing these cases more rigorously because of how detrimental these sorts of reviews can be to companies. Consumers may directly or indirectly come across these negative reviews either as users of the review service or by stumbling upon it through a Google search. Either way, if one of the first reviews readers stumble upon is negative, and to a greater extent harshly negative, this could result in the company's revenue dropping as much as 70%.

A Question of Truth
This lawsuit certainly isn't the first of its kind. Recently a company won a 1.6 million lawsuit against a blogger who accused another company of stealing money. These lawsuits are tricky since they present a conflict between freedom of speech and a company's online persona. Freedom of speech, however, doesn't extend to defamatory statements. Since defamation must be based on a false statement in order for the writer to be held liable, lawyers advise writers of these reviews to stick to opinions and truths. If you don't lie, misrepresent yourself or exaggerate your experience, you should not be held liable. Being able to separate emotions from your situation will help to ensure that you, as a reviewer, will be protected from such lawsuits.

Many online defamation lawsuits fail, but in the case of Jane Perez's review, a temporary injunction has been granted against the defendant to prevent her from continuing to write defamatory statements online. Dietz claims he did complete the work outlined in the contract and Perez allegedly didn't want to pay. Dietz filed an initial suit against her and it was after this that she allegedly started writing defamatory statements about his company.

The Bottom Line
Yelp encourages its users to be honest regarding their experiences but also does not take responsibility for what users say. Users are always cautioned to omit excessive exaggeration and should know not to lie on a review. Although First Amendment rights are important and must be upheld, deliberately sabotaging the viability of a business must also be discouraged. Outright lying is considered defamation and individuals who take part in these types of activities can and will be held liable. If users of Yelp are honest and truthful ,then a company should not be able to sue for defamation simply because it won't match the definition of the action."

But that doesn't mean you'll lose:

"The contractor, Christopher Dietz, filed a $750,000 defamation suit and got a judge to order Perez to rewrite the reviews. The Virginia Supreme Court recently reversed that decision, saying that reviews should not be censored — and that if they were defamatory, Dietz should focus on getting money damages.

The ruling is being hailed as an important victory for freedom of speech on the Internet, which it is. But it is also a reminder of the risks that come with being an online critic. Sites like Yelp! and Amazon give ordinary people the power to write reviews that have a major impact on other people’s reputations and livelihoods."

And there's the problem.

"But it also means that they can be held legally responsible if what they write is defamatory."

"Dietz scored a big victory in the lower court when he persuaded a judge to order Perez to rewrite her reviews, but civil liberties groups were outraged. The ACLU argued that the order violated Perez’s first amendment rights by telling her that she could not make certain statements even before a court had determined that they were false or defamatory. In late December, the Virginia Supreme Court agreed. If Perez’s reviews prove to be defamatory—if they are false and they injured Dietz’s reputation— Dietz can collect monetary damages. But he has no right to get the reviews taken down while the courts try to figure out who is right.

Under federal law — 47 U.S.C. § 230, to be specific — websites like Yelp and Angie’s List are shielded from being sued for defamation, but the writers — people like Perez — are legally responsible for what they write and lawsuits can be filed against them. That may not be what a lot of people are thinking when they go on Angie’s List or Amazon to air grievances. In fact, Perez told the Washington Post that when she posted her reviews it never occurred to her that she might end up in court or on the hook for thousands of dollars in legal fees — not to mention the monetary damages. Dietz is suing for $750,000, and awards can go far higher than that. In 2006, a jury awarded a Florida woman $11.3 million in damages against a woman who made defamatory comments on an Internet message board.

The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling is an important defense of people’s right to go online and express their views. But it is also a reminder that anyone who crosses the line may have to pay up — big time."

Regards,
John

[Prof.Gringo]

[Prof.Gringo]

[donato]

[Cool Teacher]

Here'a my two pennies!

I have heard that libel means wehn you tell a lie about someone that would hurt their reputation if it was believed to be true.

Now, in some places the defendent has to do all the proving not the complainer and that means they can threaten to take you to court jsut to make you have to do work to prepare yourself and sometimes this is just a bluff to make you think "Oh too much trouble. I'll just take it down even though it is true because I cannot spend all ths time and money to prove I am right." This is caleld LAWFARE!!!

[sparks]

Take everything on the web with a grain of salt, take everything everywhere with a grain of salt and you'll sail through life a lot more smoothly. Anyway, I wouldn't doubt that websites do edit information in order to avoid possible legal proceedings. I think that this one also takes down a lot of the negative comments about schools. This could be called censorship and bias but it's nothing new and hasn't been abolished in the 21st century. It's just the world we live in.

[Mr. English]

More important, for the benefit of both you and your students assuming you are still teaching English, you wrote "I've noticed that increasingly less and less review sites are willing to accept negative reviews". "Less" is used for uncountable items, "fewer" for countable items. The sentence should read "… fewer and fewer review sites …".

[Cool Teacher]

[kpjf]

Couple in bid to sue bad reviewers