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Virginia Woman Is Sued For $750,000 After Writing Scathing Yelp Review
First time accepted submitter VegetativeState writes "Jane Perez hired a construction company and was not happy with the work they did and alleged some of her jewelry was stolen. She submitted reviews on Yelp and Angie's List, giving the company all F's. The contractor is now suing her for $750,000. From the article: 'Dietz, the owner of Dietz Development, filed the Internet defamation lawsuit filed last month, stating that "plaintiffs have been harmed by these statements, including lost work opportunities, insult, mental suffering, being placed in fear, anxiety, and harm to their reputations."
Perez's Yelp review accused the company of damaging her home, charging her for work that wasn't done and of losing jewelry. The lawsuit follows an earlier case against Perez, which was filed in July 2011 by Dietz for unpaid invoices. According to the recent filing, the two were high school classmates.'"
And if it's not, behold the dreaded Streisand effect.
This sounds like a S.L.A.P.P. suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Basically, if someone fucks you over and you speak out about it, they sometimes retaliate by suing you. The plaintiff gambles on the likelihood that the victim will just slink away rather than go through an emotionally-damaging (and expensive) legal battle and the bad guy basically wins. These lawsuits are weapons... it's not about justice.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
The plaintiff is asking the government to force her to pay them money as a result of her speech.
The important part is that the reviewer is being sued. This is the way this stuff is supposed to work. Too often we see stories here on /. where the online service provider is being sued.
Kudos to the plaintiff in this case for not suing Yelp and Angie's List...regardless of who's in the right, the right two parties are in court.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Lawyers in the UK aren't free, and there are plenty of lower-cost lawyers in the US. It is true that court costs have been going up as government funding for the courts goes down, creating barriers to access to justice for plaintiffs and defendants alike -- perhaps somewhat ironically, this is in part because the courts are an easy target due to the blithely-swallowed meme that America is particularly litigious, and/or that civil litigation is some kind of ticket to easy street. And it is certainly also true that big fish sometimes play dirty tricks like burying the other side in paperwork to strong-arm a settlement, but, again, that's not inherent to the US system, and a clever lawyer can find cost-effective ways to protect his or her client's interests.
But perpetuating the meme that there is no real justice in the US is precisely the sort of thing that allows the politicians to get away with undercutting the justice system. The public doesn't trust judges or lawyers, so the politicians have an easy target when it's time for budget negotiations, and the entire civil justice system suffers for it. So funny enough, by disparaging the US court system (without offering any actual facts, statistics, or comparative surveys of US versus UK litigation, naturally), you're perpetuating the ignorant, unfair stereotypes about it that eventually result in actual harm to overall justice. But hey, what do you care -- not like you're an American who's gonna be hurt by it, right?