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Negative Online Reviews Are Not Defamation (At Least In Canada)
An anonymous reader writes A client who was dissatisfied with the service of an immigration company in Canada took her grievances online, upon which she was sued for defamation and libel by the owner of the company. A Canadian superior court has tossed out the lawsuit with the note: "One may be dissatisfied with the quality or efficiency of services but expressing one's dissatisfaction is not equivalent to defamation." The court noted: "This demand is grossly exaggerated. It flirts with frivolity and abuse within the meaning given to these words in Article 54.1 C.C.P."
Now, let's bring that logic here to the US.
Because, as tennis player John McEnroe once informed a hecker, "I'm doing you a favor just by talking to you."
(...am I doing the online negative review right?)
Ezekiel 23:20
If someone wants to win a suit over a negative review, they should have to prove that the review is false. For instance, they would have to prove that the customer was not dissatisfied with the service, or that some other statement that the client made in their review was false in a defamatory way. I think that a statement such as "this company is the worst ever" should not be expected to be literally true, but be taken as a statement of dissatisfaction on the part of the customer.
The main cause for dismissal of this wasn't that online reviews are not defamation. It was because the lawsuit was brought by the wrong entity (the lawyer who represents the website, rather than the corporation who owns the website) and that he failed to provide substantive proof of any monetary loss.
If it were brought by the right entity and there was proof of loss, it may not have gone the same way. The judge specifically said that the review did have defamatory language in it.
You have even more freedom of speech in the US, so I am very certain that you would be more than covered there. Really, the only country in the entire world I could see a legitimate review labeled as defamation is the UK. Where the wording of their lawsin my oppinion , would make all negative review technically defamation.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The title is a bit misleading - it *should* read "(At Least In Québec)".
This case was a civil matter heard in the Québec Superior Court, and some of the statues cited were from the Québec Code of Civil Procedure. The legislative framework of Québec is derived from French civil law, whereas the English-speaking provinces derive from English common law. A Québec precedent on a civil matter won't have weight in other provinces, so extrapolating a Québec decision to the whole of Canada isn't correct. A similar decision would need to be reacehd in, say, the Ontario or B.C. superior court, as there's much more commonality between the common-law derived jurisdictions (no pun intended).
As I read the judge's ruling, he throws out the case because no evidence of damage was shown, because the lawyer himself was not defamed (the website, a corporation the lawyer worked for, was), and that except for the use of the word "cheated" there was no tort (right of lien). IANAL but I find it hard not to see that the judge might well have ruled the other way had the plaintiff been the website corporation.
Where is the expansion of the right to publish bad reviews here? I don't see it.
Pfft! More like had them in the back seat for the whole night, knocked them up, and later they had triplets...
The low regard for free speech is a real shame.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
In the USofA, it is very easy for a corporation (you know, our overlords) to file a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). They have been used, for example, to punish those who "outed" falsely-labeled "organic" produce and protect at least one slaughterhouse from charges of animal cruelty (a bit wierd, but think of the difference between the "humane" killing methods of kosher and Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle") and poor sanitation.
Before everyone gets their panties in a knot I though I would paste a link to the definition of defamation since a few of the comments suggested many don't know the actual definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Well, at least in Canada, that is.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I agree that the important point when reading this is that there is a difference between expressing dissatisfaction with a service or product and defamation or slander.
The main points to consider are the intent of the person expressing the negative opinion and whether what they are saying is true, and if not, if they know that what they are saying about the product, person or service (read "Brand") is not true. If I decide I hate my former boss and start publishing a bunch of things about him that are not true with the intent of harming his/her career, I would be liable to be sued for that. If I am an employer on the other hand, and have fired someone and am called and asked to comment on my experiences with that person, I can pretty much say anything about them that is true, and outside of that I can get away with saying anything that is subjective or difficult to prove. Most employers do not comment on former employees beyond confirming that they worked there, the dates of hiring and termination and sometimes whether they would hire them again. (Generally companies have the policy that no one but the human relations division is to answer such calls, to guard against lawsuits, and regularly drill their HR departments on what they can and cannot say.)
Free speech means that you can say whatever you want so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, though this is open to a lot of interpretation and some would call me naive for even using those words, You still can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, and use free speech as justification. Publishing untrue information about someone with the intent to hurt their brand, career or them personally, is not protected by law however and I suspect the outcome of the case in Canada would have been different if that had been proved to be the case on the part of the defendant.
It also helps if you have money, sad but true. If there was one change that could be made to the legal system in the US it would be to level the playing field between those with money to burn and those who live paycheck to paycheck. All things being equal, those with ulterior motive and who have money would do everything in their power to make sure that the playing field was not level, while trying to appear fair. At the same time those "have nots" who argue that the system is in no way balanced or fair in terms of money, may be right in a lot of cases but usually are not listened to and their rights being trampled on is not even news anymore unless it causes a riot like happened in Ferguson Missouri recently. We have come a long way in the US, but we have much farther to go than we have come already.
Really. Not being sarcastic.
I'm not so familiar with QC law but generally in Canada, damages have to be proven, real, and accurate. To get $100K in damages the plaintiff would have to show the loss and not just pull a number out of the air. Further, punitive damages are reserved, AFAIK, for situations that truly deserve punishment.
This is the "common sense" aspect of the case. The judge looked at the facts and quickly determined that there ain't no way to show any loss let alone $100K. There certainly is no basis for punishment either.
You want to sue for damages that haven't happened then go South.
If someone wants to win a suit over a negative review, they should have to prove that the review is false. For instance, they would have to prove that the customer was not dissatisfied with the service, or that some other statement that the client made in their review was false in a defamatory way. I think that a statement such as "this company is the worst ever" should not be expected to be literally true, but be taken as a statement of dissatisfaction on the part of the customer.
I think if this were to happen, yelp would be out of business, since according to some anecdotes, they post fake negative reviews to (effectively) blackmail you into buying their advertising services, which includes (1) not placing competitors ads on the pages they create for your business, without your permission, and (2) allow you to chose reviews seen by default by users who do not click through to additional reviews (thus allowing you to effectively "hide" negative reviews that they themselves might have originated).
Personally, I find yelp occasionally helpful, but fixing the standards of evidence, such as "when did Bad Review Bob say he was here, and does he have a receipt, because I was booked solid during those hours on that day?" to make being able to rip down a fake bad review from a hater/competitor/yelp itself/etc. easier would sink their "pay for positive review placement" model.