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

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."

Comments

Free speech

[MooseTick]

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

Re:Free speech

[roc97007]

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.

Re:Free speech

[arashi no garou]

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).

Re:Free speech

[aristotle-dude]

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.

Re:Free speech

[shutdown -p now]

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.

Re:Free speech

[lgw]

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.

Babs, look what you did again

[davebarnes]

When will businesses learn?
I know, never.

How can you win over facts?

[fructose]

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.

Re:How can you win over facts?

[gp824]

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

Summary is wrong

[tompaulco]

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?

I will avoid this place like the bedbug plague

[generic_screenname]

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

Lawsuit = Billboard saying they have bedbugs

[JoeyRox]

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.