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."

Comments

Common Sense Prevails

[Ronin Developer]

Now, let's bring that logic here to the US.

Re:Common Sense Prevails

[Trepidity]

I hope the test case is Dice suing someone over a "Slashdot Beta Sucks!" comment.

Re: Common Sense Prevails

[Kvathe]

Thank you for your sound and logical assessment of the american people.

Re:Common Sense Prevails

[mrchaotica]

Common sense would be if the judge dispensed with the "flirts with" qualification and declared the demand to be "frivolity and abuse," and then awarded attorney fees and court costs to the defendant.

More importantly, the judgement failed to uphold the negative view as non-defamatory, but rather ruled against the plaintiff because the entity being defamed was a separate legal entity (the corporation owning the website, not the plaintiff personally). In fact, the judge ruled that:

[32] Surely, the Defendantâ(TM)s use of the word "cheated" may sound harsh but I cannot conclude that this whole affair implies that the Plaintiff personally is a cheater, a liar, a dishonest person or that the Plaintiff defrauds his clients. [33] The word "cheated" carries a pejorative connotation. Furthermore, the doctrine of "fair comment" or "truth of the statement" is not a defence [sic] to an action for defamation. Had the Defendant specifically and publicly allege that the Plaintiff has personally "cheated" her, the use of such word would have been defamatory.

In particular, the judge's opinion that ' the doctrine of "fair comment" or "truth of the statement" is not a defence [sic] to an action for defamation' makes this a bad ruling!

Re:Common Sense Prevails

[rs79]

"Facts aren't defamation."

They are in the UK where truth is not an absolute defense of libel.

Blame Canada! Blame Canada

[K. S. Kyosuke]

(...am I doing the online negative review right?)

What it should take to sue successfully

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

IANAL but that doesn't seem to be what it says

[Tyger]

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.

Not just Canada

[wisnoskij]

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.

IANAL, but IAC

[gauntlet420]

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).

Re:IANAL, but IAC

[BarbaraHudson]

The rest of Canada follows common law, which has the same basic rules. Even true statements can be defamatory.

Broadly, Canadians can be held liable by English-Canadian courts for comments on public affairs, about public figures, which are factually true, and which are broadly believed. They cannot be held liable for opinion, inference, hyperlinking without explicit agreement with the content, reportage when this is based on honest research and journalistic ethics. Plaintiffs need not prove falsity, malice or damages. Politicians can, and do,[4] sue including during elections for political advantage [5] or to silence critics or accusers. Evidence can be gathered by spies representing themselves falsely in private conversations. Defendants, once accused, are prima facie liable until they prove themselves innocent (reverse onus). Anonymous persons can be exposed for political comment, even if they are vulnerable and reside in jurisdictions where retribution is likely.[6] People may be sued from remote jurisdictions if publication can be proven in that remote jurisdiction, which can mean as few as one person seeing the words.

Whaaa? Where Does TFA Say That?

[Anna Merikin]

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.

Re:Whaaa? Where Does TFA Say That?

[BarbaraHudson]

It's to be noted that defamation law is different in Canada than in the US. In Canada, the truth of a statement is not, in and of itself, sufficient to have a claim of defamation dismissed. The effect of the statement and the intent also come into play. For example, someone may be gay or lesbian or whatever, but that does not give you the right to say so with the intent for them to, for example, lose their job.

And in the end, Streisand Effect! strikes again.

Re:SLAPP in USofA

[dltaylor]

They don't have to "win". The legal fees will break most individuals in a contest against a corporation.