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Canadian Hotel Sues Guest For $95K Over Bad Review, Bed Bugs

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-let-the-connoisseurs-bite dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A guest at at Quebec hotel was bitten by bed bugs, brought some down to the front desk and asked for new room. While the fully booked hotel offers to get him another room in a different hotel, he stays out the night then leaves — telling people at the hotel — some of whom also check out. When he wrote about it on Trip Advisor, the hotel demanded he take it down and when he did they sued him for $95,000."

19 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Free speech by MooseTick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Free speech is for those people who know how to keep their mouths shut!

    --
    Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
    1. Re:Free speech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Moot, because there is no "freedom of speech" in Canada. Tons of people think there is, but there is not.

      In any case, I doubt this hotel will win the suit, as long as there actually were bed bugs. If this guy made it up, he is screwed.

    2. Re:Free speech by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The hotel is not denying that this guy had bedbugs in his room on the night of his stay. Apparently the hotel's justification for suing comes down to them believing that only his room was infested, and that this was an isolated incident.

      Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as "only one room infested with bed bugs" in a hotel. (Think about how they're serviced.) This could be an entertaining lawsuit. The problem I see is that the hotel taking him to court puts even more media attention on the hotel being infested.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:Free speech by arashi+no+garou · · Score: 4, Insightful

      His review was of his room; he didn't sleep in the entire hotel and didn't claim to find the bugs anywhere but his own room. I'm no lawyer but the backlash from doing something as stupid as suing a customer for telling the truth will likely cost the chain much more than the $95k they wanted from him. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up paying him in the end (or at least his legal fees).

    4. Re:Free speech by aristotle-dude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is trumped by hate speech laws, for example. It stands in all cases where it is not overridden for some reason thought reasonable by the legal system. So lawsuits can happen about anything, and will come to court as long as the plaintiff can convince the judge that the nullification of freedom of expression is reasonable in this instance.

      Seems like in this case, they're trying to trump freedom of expression with libel/slander laws. Possible, but not likely in this case, and this is NOT the kind of publicity a hotel should be wanting to bring on itself.

      Here is the thing of it. Hate speech laws are not about trumping anything but rather balancing out the rights of two different individuals and their rights. With hate speech, you are threatening the fundamental rights from section 1 which are life, liberty and security of person. This differs from the American version which is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

      If your life is being threatened then you cannot exercise the right to life or security of person effectively. This is a fundamental and important difference between the two systems. In Canada, you have to be able to feel "free" in order to be free and it focuses on individual security rather than security of the state or society.

      If the Americans had the right to security of person, perhaps they would not have such a huge surveillance state.

      --
      Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
    5. Re:Free speech by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also note that this isn't really fundamentally different from the situation in the USA, where the same thing exists by convention. If the First Amendment, for example, was absolute, it would be protecting slander and libel, imminent threats, arbitrary disclosure of classified information etc - but it does not.

    6. Re:Free speech by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sorry, but "life, liberty, and security of person" does not include the right to remain unoffended.

      Threats are a different legal matter; separate 'hate speech' laws aren't needed to make physical threats illegal. They are as illegal here in the US as they are in Canada.

    7. Re:Free speech by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I also think that the guest over-reacted

      I don't think there is such a thing. If he had burned the hotel to the ground and detonated a small nuclear device in the rubble, I'd admire his restraint.

      Bedbugs need to become extinct as a species. A biological weapon is the best approach, IMO. If it accidentally takes out a few thousand other species, that's just acceptable collateral damage.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re:Free speech by sg_oneill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah as someone who had the displeasure of having to erradicate my house of these horrifying bugs I picked up from a hotel (Seriously, it took nearly 6 months to finally be able to say they where gone. I have nightmares about those damn things and to this day I still have scars) , they do NOT just exist in one room. The little bastards spread as fast as they can and set up escape routes when sprayed.

      Any hotel with bedbugs should be SHUT DOWN until a health department inspector can verify ALL of the bugs are gone, no ifs, no buts, mandatory shutdown. These things are a dangerous pandemic.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    9. Re:Free speech by dubbreak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This. You can also tell by what state they are in and whether there is shedded skin. As they become adults they shed a layer. That's not going to happen in a matter of hours. Also any signs of eggs etc. I experienced this in a hotel in Florida. They didn't deny the infestation (didn't even feign surprise), but they insisted we pay for the first night despite not having stayed.

      I got on their Facebook page and started Tweeting relentlessly. They locked their twitter account and made the Facebook page private. No BS libel suit though. Of course we had 3 rooms in different wings all in various stages of infection. They did manage to get my tripadvisor review pulled (claiming I didn't stay there). If I didn't stay there then why do I have a bill for the night? Can't have it both ways. Tripadvisor wasn't interested in my receipt, they just said to post it again and make sure there is nothing in the wording that sounds like I didn't stay there.

      Personally I'd sick the local health authority on them. I've done that to local restaurants (after getting food poisoning) and in the case of the Florida hotel I even sought out their local inspectors. A bad review may or may not hurt them. A failed inspection can have them shut down and protects your ass against a libel suit.

      --
      "If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
  2. Babs, look what you did again by davebarnes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When will businesses learn?
    I know, never.

    --
    Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
    1. Re:Babs, look what you did again by mcrbids · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Businesses aren't some unified group, they're just people like you and I trying to make it in a world that is often unfriendly. It's a small percentage of true douches (looking long and hard at you, Goldman Sachs) that give the name "businessman" a bad name.

      Often, the schleps running such a business have no clue about things like the Streisand effect. Come to think of it, why don't you become a businessman and set the record straight? Surely, you could beat out this moron...

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  3. How can you win over facts? by fructose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Assuming that the story the guest told was true (and it seems it was, based on the hotel admitting it), how can the hotel possibly win when the reviewer is stating facts? If the review was completely made up, I would assume libel laws would side with the hotel. But when the whole situation is based on facts, and the reviewer is merely passing those facts on to the public, how can the hotel even expect to win?

    The article is right, the hotel should have helped him out more from the get go instead of trying to do damage control.

    1. Re:How can you win over facts? by gp824 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't assume that civil law suits will be treated how they are in the US or in any other provinces in Canada. Quebec treats civil suits under French civil law.... a complex different system that we are used to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_law

    2. Re:How can you win over facts? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Having a right to say something is not the same as having a right to not be sued for saying something. You're discussing the criminality of saying something, when the issue here is strictly a civil one.

  4. Summary is wrong by tompaulco · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The summary says he took the review down and then they sued him. The article says he did not take the review down. I will admit that I wasn't immediately able to find the review, but there are three others on tripadvisor about the Hotel Quebec having bedbugs. It is a chain, though so not sure if it is the same one.
    Aren't bedbugs really tiny and hard to see? Isn't it more likely that these were not bedbugs the species, but some kind of other bugs on the bed?

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  5. I will avoid this place like the bedbug plague by generic_screenname · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I will never stay at a hotel that responds to a complaint on the internet with a $95k lawsuit.

  6. Lawsuit = Billboard saying they have bedbugs by JoeyRox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I realize the negative publicity they received from his Trip Advisor review has hurt their business but by filing the lawsuit they're guaranteeing that every person who hasn't read the review will now become aware of their bed bug problem. And with the hotel not denying there were bedbugs the lawsuit is a horrible idea.

  7. Hotel is wrong but customer sounds like a dick by multiben · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The hotel is clearly stupid and they will also lose this battle. But why did the customer refuse to move to another hotel? They chose to stay in a bed which they knew had bed bugs? And suggested that the hotel manager get down on her knees and beg him not to tell anyone? Sounds like a serial victim on a power trip to me. Can't wait for something bad to happen to them so they can become the outraged centre of attention.