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8 Yelp Reviewers Hit With $1.2 Million Defamation Suits
New submitter goodboi writes: A Silicon Valley building contractor is suing 8 of its critics over the reviews they posted on Yelp. The negative reviews were filtered out by Yelp's secretive ranking system, but in court documents filed earlier this month, Link Corporation claims that the bad publicity cost over $165,000 in lost business.
They claim that each defendant cost them the *entire amount* of one lost job. Is that a thing? If I had 100 bad Yelp reviews and it cost me a $1000 job, could I claim $1000 from each of them for $100,000?
What ever happened to free speech?
It seems like there's another business with the same name working in his area and he's getting reviews from their annoyed customers.
1) I don't think that suing the customers in question is going to help his reputation much
2) He'll have a hard time proving defamation if it's a genuine misunderstanding.
Funny, my business has nothing but 5 star reviews displayed, and I've never given yelp one single cent. Sounds like the war cry of the butt hurt to me.
Cry Havoc and let slip the Babs of war.
Let's see how long Link stays in business in Silicon Valley after this one.
Are you relating two seperate issues or does the EPA ruling have something to do with Free Speech?
Also, you think buisnesses should be bound by the 1st ammendment? Do you understand the point of the Bill Of Rights and what it was suppose to be limiting (Goverment..)
I know, I know who reads TFA. Still, the company in question is suing alleging these reviews are FAKE. That is they are not suing for negative reviews, they are suing unknown people for posting fake negative reviews.
How come reviewers get sued?
If a newspaper prints an article the writer does not get sued. Why does are writers in the website getting sued?
A review does not cost anyone money. When someone reads the review that may cost money. But writing something,even if it is false, can not be illegal.
Sounds like the war cry of the butt hurt to me.
Well GP was reviewing a colonic irrigation service
This is clearly a case for application of anti-SLAPP laws. My understanding is that California already has pretty good options in this area, but many other states and the federal system do not. A good anti-SLAPP law allow the defendants in these cases to request dismissal of the case prior to the very expensive discovery phase AND allow for recovery of legal fees.
At what point does exercising one's right to free speech become vigilantism? IMHO, there's a lot of the latter going on these days. Say you don't like some business owner's view on a particular issue. Does that give you the right to destroy that person's career? Do they not have an equal right to free speech? Why is it okay to destroy that person's career through activism and social media when you can't do it through the law?
So now we all get to stay away from Link Corporation.
Even the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the EPA had to consider cost when determining what was "necessary and proper." Cost trumps the freedoms guaranteed in the bill of rights. If my free speech costs someone money, the Bill of Rights has no standing. Government at least is prevented (heavily restricted) from prosecuting people for their speech. Business has no such Constitutional amendment restraining its desire to quelch speech it thinks offensive.
Business is fundamentally undemocratic and unconstitutional.
No, business behaves a sociopath because much of it is being run by a small, avaricious and sociopathic clique of oligarchs. You can run a business in a pretty democratic and egalitarian way. There are plenty of examples of that in may different forms, even in the USA. Such organizations just get dumped on a lot by right wing nuts for being 'socialists' but they exist and some are quite successful.
You need to be MUCH more precise in your language, as that speech has to be fraudulent, violate some contract, or involve some other kind of tort. If this review were accurate, for example, it could cost Link money, but it would not be actionable.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I know we've all seen too many cases of companies trying to abuse Yelp reviewers to shut down criticism, but in this case they may have a point.
A number of the reviews are from accounts that have no other reviews, and use images from stock photo sites - attached to ethnically stereotypical names (Shlomo the Jew, Sassy the black woman, and Jenyu the Asian) complete with racist stereotypical stories - Shlomo's Jewishness was insulted, Sassy got CPS called on her, and Jenyu said in stereotyped Asian style "Plumber he work four days he finish, pipe make noise."
We might be smart enough to realize they're bullshit reviews at first glance, but we're not representative of the general public.
No, if your speech is untruthful, and causes someone harm, financially included, then it's illegal. It's been this way for as long as history can remember. This isn't even a law that was born with the US as it far predates the existence of the US.
You're aware that you're complaining that you might be held legally responsible for lying about somebody or something. It's not unreasonable to punish somebody for lying if it causes harm.
It sounds like your butt hurt because there's laws that limit your ability of being a dick. Be honest. If a company screws you, and you complain about it, that's perfectly legal, because it's true. But if the company didn't screw you, but you claim they did, that's where the problem comes in.
it would seem the defendant(s) would have a pretty good defense if they can show receipts for rework, notices of failed inspections, proof of injury to the daughter and the resultant investigation, etc. Since each instance has a $165,000 amount tagged to it I'm guessing it's all one job. As such, they sound a bit extreme.Some sound like a bit of did, did not such as the "they said bad things..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
So the 14th amendment incorporates the limitations on the federal government onto the states as well. It only happened in 1868, so it's understandable that some people might not yet be up to speed on the concept.
I wish I could sue those "image management" services that post fake positive reviews.
http://www.yelp.com/not_recommended_reviews/link-corporation-palo-alto
The 1st amendment doesn't apply, as libel is a civil infraction.
You're still free to say/write whatever the hell you like, but if you do so maliciously and mendaciously and it causes articulable damages to another person, then they have grounds to bring suit. It's not the government that acts against you, it's the injured party.
You don't seem to understand the difference between criminal and civil law.
Criminal statutes establish some conduct as illegal (theft, rape, murder, etc.), and commission of such offenses will cause the state to act against you.
Civil law establishes rules under which individual parties may sue each other for relief, damages, etc. Libel is a civil infraction. If you write something that is maliciously untruthful about another person (and though it creeps me right the fuck out, businesses *are* legally considered persons for these purposes) and it damages them in some way, they have standing to sue you in court.
In short, the state is not telling you that you are subject to criminal prosecution for lying, but the law does allow for anyone who you lie about to sue the pants off you.
Free speech is not the same thing as saying anything you want at any time without consequence. There are (for very good reasons) certain types of speech that are exceptions to the protections of the First Amendment.
Libel is not protected speech. Neither is obscenity, defamation, incitement, incitement to riot, fighting words, fraud, threats, speech covered by copyright, some forms of commercial speech and speech integral to criminal conduct.
If this review were accurate, for example, it could cost Link money, but it would not be actionable.
Not strictly true -- it's possible to make a series of true statements but present them in a way that is misleading or inappropriately singles out a person or company in a misleading way. If there is evidence that this was done deliberately and maliciously, there could still be basis for an action. Contrary to popular belief, truth is not an absolute defense to defamation, especially if truth is presented in a selective and deliberately misleading way.
I mean there's this person's account, and this SF Gate article stating that yelp can manipulate reviews for paying customers .
"Freedom of speech". Riiiiiight. Yelp is an extortion racket, plain and simple. Pay your hush money or lose your rating.
What are the consequences for this construction company when it is found out that the reviews in question were statements of fact?
Let's get this straight.
Yelp has a SECRETIVE ranking system that you as users are not allowed to know about, but You as users are not allowed to post Anonymous reviews in secret, and on top of all that, Yelp is allowing of censorship of reviews which is exactly what people use Yelp for?
Not a very good business model. Yelp will put themselves out of business by going along with it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What is the point of reporting these meaningless numbers that the plaintiffs ask for? They could ask for the world and the moon and it doesn't mean a thing. It's the judge or jury's job to come up with some kind of judgement.
The court filing admits that it is "ignorant of true names and capacities."
This should be an entertaining slapfight.
It never ceases to amaze me that so few people understand that.
2) It is appropriate to sue for fake, defamatory reviews. I only wish it was legal to sue for fake promotional reviews. That it basically just business as usual.
3)They are suing for the full amount 8 times not because they want to get paid x8, but because they are concerned that they might only be able to prove one review is fake. I fully expect that once the identities are revealed, the law suits will be consolidated from 8 to fewer, probably only 1. This way if they prove even a single issue they will get fully paid.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There has to be some way to figure this problem out. It should be especially easy with restaurants since they all use software to track orders. Maybe something like a new Diners Club Card where the Restaurant/Server and Customer can rate each other based on real data. For instance if the customer complains about waiting too long the data should show when they were seated and ticket was opened and when the food was served. If the customer complains about the soup but didn't order it the customer's other reviews be suspect. If the customer claims the server was rude but that server otherwise gets great reviews then they should be suspect. If the restaurant owners could get that kind of feedback on which dishes/servers were liked or disliked it would help them as well. And if you present the card when you show up and you have a good reputation as a diner you could get higher ranked servers.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Did you do a Google Image search too?
On Yelp, this guy is Deepak Patel http://www.yelp.com/not_recomm...
But at Norwest Venture Partners, he's Sanjay Rao https://angel.co/norwest-ventu...
They also had no complaints at the BBB. http://www.bbb.org/losangeless...
Also, I looked on Google for the lawsuit National Collection Agency, Inc. Vs Link Corporation, Et Al Case Number 1-08-CV-129441
Couldn't find it.
What if this contractor actually fucked all 8 people? there's nothing intentional about that at all, just customer's telling the truth about their shitty experience at this company
Lets hope this contractor loses hard and has to pay these 8 people for wasting their time.
You told him why he got a crappy review.
Did you post in the review that he owned up and (presumably) made good on fixing the issue?
Problem solved.
This would require tracking all restaurant customers and not having any anonymous or pseudonymous reviews. That looks to me like serious attacks on privacy.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If they sue people for $1.2 million, I probably would not use them.
I hear Barbra Streisand might need some work on her house, which you can see right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Last summer, Yelp got binged for offering to remove a negative review for money. I no longer take any comments from Yelp with a sincere heart. The idea of Yelp was a good idea, but not in the hands of the unscrupulous
"And I explained in the review that the reason it wasn't a 1-star review and is a 2-star is because he admitted his mistake and contacted his insurance agent that day."
Is a new criminal enterprise whose business is intimidating the public as potential jurors. Oh, wait...
and spoken like a techie who doesn't have a clue about the real world. Yes it would be amazing if we all had RFID barcodes in our foreheads and a live stream google glass feed to cloud storage overseen by sensitive, yet masculine auditors... but we don't live on planet Unicorn Fairy Paradise.
Restaurants do not all use software to track orders. The ones that do use POS systems have issues with the staff not using them correctly - 20-30 percent of servers are teenagers and about 80% of sous chefs and line cooks cannot speak English, let alone read or write it. Even fantastic Michelin starred restaurants are almost universally staffed with drunks, drug addicts, paranoid schizophrenics, and people who couldn't hold down a 9-5 desk job for more than about 5 minutes. Please get a fucking clue about the restaurant business...