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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.'"
Doesn't apply to defamation/slander.
I hate sigs.
Unless it's true!
Free speech doesn't mean no consequences. Libel and Slander are two very well known examples of situations where your speech has consequences.
This will hinge on proving that her statements (particularly about the stolen jewelry) were true. If they were, then she's protected by free speech. If they prove to have been false, then she's screwed.
Correct, it has to both be false and malicious.
I hate sigs.
"No consequences" is misleading.
"Free speech" means the government will not bring force against you for your speech. False and malicious speech, however, is a type of fraud: a different crime.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I'm not a fancy lawyer or nothing; but this suggests that it could.
Specifically: "In Virginia, a statement that does any of the following things amounts to defamation per se:
(some irrelevant ones omitted)
hurts the plaintiff in his or her profession or trade."
A nasty yelp review would reasonably seem to be something that would hurt a contractor in their profession or trade. However, in order to be defamatory, the statement has to be a false statement of fact. If what she says turns out to be substantially true, he can just go cry about it(and "Nasty yelp review upheld in court of law" probably doesn't help your PR any). If she is lying or terribly ill-supported, though...
If posting to Yelp is a huge financial risk, the site will quickly die.
So where are:
1. The complaint/lawsuit for restoration of damage to her house?
2. The complaint/lawsuit for the work that was not done (but apparently billed)?
3. The police report/lawsuit detailing the theft of the jewelry?
All of the above are things that should be taken seriously if they actually happened. Complaining on Yelp/Angies List only and not following through in the correct legal channels gives credence to the lawsuit against her.
So WTF is this doing on /. anyway? This just seems like it is here because it's a typical lawsuit but a computer is involved
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
If they were, then she's protected by free speech.
Freedom of Speech has NOTHING to do with this case. Freedom of Speech applies only to the governments ability to restrict speech and doesn't apply to what you can say in an online forum. If what she said is in fact true then libel doesn't apply because truth is an absolute defense against libel and slander.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
was the contractor convicted of the crime?
did she win a civil lawsuit for the home damage?
No? then she deserves to be sued. You can't bad mouth people and spread false information about them without being able to prove it
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."
Fortunately some of our laws were made during the brief time when the government was run by the people.
When was that? Or do you mean run by the people who were white male landowners who didn't pick the losing side in a recent war?
Yep, those are the ones I mean.
A review score is an opinion. Her unhappyness is also an opinion. He would have to show the fact statements in the review were lies. Specifically he would have to prove that Jewelry was not stolen.
That's far from the only "fact", there's at least three in the summary that are not opinion
Perez's Yelp review accused the company of
1. damaging her home,
2. charging her for work that wasn't done and
3. of losing jewelry.
Those are all matters of fact, not opinion the court could look into. Also, this is a civil case not a criminal trial so the standard is "preponderance of evidence". Can she offer any evidence she had the jewels? Did she file a police complaint? The court system won't just take her word for it, if she's just throwing out accusations without a shred of evidence he might not have to prove a thing and still win. After all, how could he prove that jewels that doesn't exist haven't gone missing?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You're confusing criminal law and civil; as the defendant she's the one with the burden of proof.
Nitpick: Since this is civil court, she doesn't have to "prove" anything. She just has to present enough evidence to show that her accusations are probably true. A "preponderance of the evidence", is a much lower hurdle than the "no reasonable doubt" standard of criminal court.
Calm down I've already been told. I was wrong on the internet.
I hate sigs.
Yes, but you can easily make the case that objectively false statements (as were made in this case) on a website intended to guide people in choosing a vendor are inherently malicious. It's not a casual conversation; it's going to a place whose sole purpose is to drive business towards or away vendors, and making untruthful statements. The woman didn't just give her opinion, but make non-subjective statements that were false on a website that she knew was a basis for reputation. That meets the standard for malice in my book.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Funny. Exactly backwards. Truth is not a defense to libel in England. They even make jokes about it on southpark Tom Cruise: 'I'll sue you in England'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
He sued her over unpaid invoices. She hired him again. He accepted work from someone who didn't pay bills before.
How do you know this? We know there was an earlier suit over unpaid bills. We know there was a review claiming damages to the home and lost jewelry. We don't know that she hired him again after the first lawsuit or that he accepted a second job. For all we know the bad review was a poor attempt at getting back at the contractor for the earlier lawsuit.
I really have no idea why they even WANT to do business with each other anymore.
You have no idea that they want to do business with each other anymore, so wondering why they want to is a bit premature.
The plaintiff is asking the government to force her to pay them money as a result of her speech.
And Perez has the burden of proof. So far I'm not on her side.
No, she doesn't. The person bringing the suit (the construction company) has to prove that what she said is false. You know, the whole innocent until proven guilty thing?
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
False, my wife was sued for libel and lost, despite her statements being completely true. In fact, the court seemed totally uninterested in whether it was true. It was a jury trial, if that matters.
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?
Well done, my reply would have been much snarkier.
Let's play a game: name an inspirational figure from history, and lets all find a way to tear them down.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
True, you can do that with pretty much every great historical figure. See:
Churchill - racist.
Thomas Jefferson - racist.
Hitler - so-so painter.
Hitler - so-so painter.
...and vegetarian.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
No, she doesn't. The person bringing the suit (the construction company) has to prove that what she said is false.
You are mistaken as regards libel. If she made an allegation on a matter of fact, she has to be able to show it is true. It's not up to him to show it was false.
You know, the whole innocent until proven guilty thing?
Yes, we all know it. It's for criminal law, not civil law. Libel is civil law.
That's not entirely true. Truth is a defense in England it's just not a complete defense. If you say something that is false you're screwed, but something true also has to be the intended audience's business, at least as far as I understand it(the law here in Oz is similar). So if you were to post on the internet that you're next door neighbor is a transvestite, you could be sued for libel, even if it's true because it's no one's business that he's a transvestite. Essentially just because something is true doesn't mean you should say it. Libertarians like the creators of South Park tend to see this as a travesty of freedom, and it certainly can be if the court takes it that way, but it does provide some protection for privacy which US law simply does not provide. There are the usual exceptions for public figures and politicians (if your member of parliament cheats on his wife it's considered in the public interest where the same information about Joe Blogs from down the street isn't). It's actually quite a reasonable approach to the law IMHO.
That said of course in this particular case, while IANAL, I would guess that this woman's situation would be the same in the US and the UK as in this context she'd most likely have a right to share this particular information(the performance of a service provider is the business of people interested in hiring said service provider). She'd simply need to prove that her statements were true(most of them anyway, property damage and an incomplete job would probably cover her even if she obviously can't prove the jewelry loss).
It's called an affirmative defense. It works the same way that self defense does in a murder trial. They prove you committed the act, you have to prove you had a right to.
Reasonable doubt is the level of proof in criminal cases. In civil it's preponderance of evidence.
How on earth was she supposed to prove it? Let me give the context for this. My wife and I met with a certain kind of medical professional after our first son was born. This person said things to us that we found profoundly disturbing. After deliberating about it, my wife decided to file a complaint with the board which certifies people who work in this profession. It wasn't like badmouthing somebody on the Internet or in the newspaper, it was this formal process. Now obviously, when you file a complaint you have to describe what happened, which my wife did.
The board apparently studied our complaint and took some kind of action against this person (something mild, I don't remember exactly, but we got something in the mail about it). A couple of months later my wife was served with the lawsuit.
At the time, we had very little capacity to pay a high-priced lawyer. The person was asking for $150,000! So on a long shot we called our homeowner's insurance company and it turned out they would defend the case under our insurance policy. I have no idea if the attorney sucked, didn't care, or if something else went wrong but the jury found in favor of plaintiff for $5k. Our insurance company paid, but it was a disgusting experience.
I found out later that this woman has a history of serial lawsuits. Not long after our case ended, she sued the board which had sanctioned her. I know this, because she fucking subpoenaed me as a witness in that case. Did I mention she was representing herself? She asked me a bunch of nutty questions for two hours which I had no idea about -- like asking me to tell her what I thought some email meant, which I had never seen before (it had nothing to do with me or my wife).
I don't know what happened after that. What a terrible shitty thing it was. Makes you scared to speak up when somebody is abusive to you. We got slimed.
Honestly, Ghandi slept in the nude with young girls, and had an very intimidate relationship with a woman who was not his wife. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html Mother Teresa supposedly squandered the money that people donated to her on various things not related to the orphans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aplank/Criticisms_of_Mother_Teresa
Best Godwin Evar!
John
You know what you call the party who hires a "lower-cost" lawyer? The LOSER. You may as well not show up and lose by default, at least then you don't have to pay the lawyer.
Ahhhhhhh, now I get it. Here I thought you were just an ill-informed, disgruntled anti-lawyer type, but now I see that you're actually a big firm lawyer trying to justify your ludicrous rates. I used to work in a big law firm with lots of people like you. Even thought I liked it, didn't want to get laid off when the recession hit. Years later and working for a small firm that charges actually affordable rates, pays me a lot less, and lets me have as much of a life as I want, I realize now how completely fucking miserable I was in biglaw, as were the vast majority of the other lawyers I worked with.
If there's any part of you that can still be gotten through to, please listen, friend: it's never too late to get out. I promise you, it's not as scary out here as you think it is. There is life on the other side of the thousand-pound billable hour, and it's pretty goddamned good.