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Yelp Can't Be Ordered To Remove Posts, Court Rules (apnews.com)
Yelp cannot be ordered to remove defamatory posts against a San Francisco law firm, the California Supreme Court said in a 4-3 ruling Monday that overturns one made by a lower court. From a report: In a 4-3 opinion, justices agreed, saying removal orders such as the one attorney Dawn Hassell obtained against Yelp "could interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform." The decision overturned a lower court ruling that Yelp had said could lead to the removal of negative reviews from the popular website. Hassell said Yelp was exaggerating the stakes of her legal effort. Her attorney, Monique Olivier, said in a statement that the ruling "stands as an invitation to spread falsehoods on the internet without consequence." She said her client was considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Hassell's 2013 lawsuit accused a client she briefly represented in a personal injury case of defaming her on Yelp by falsely claiming that her firm failed to communicate with the client, among other things.
... which law firm to avoid.
It's a small business that made a classic business mistake of attacking a bad review rather than saying they're sorry the person was disappointed.
After the firm filed the defamation case, there was a default judgment, which usually means the defendant didn't fight it in court (they didn't get a lawyer or fight it without a lawyer). Then the law firm tried to use that judgment to force Yelp to take the review down. Yelp didn't, claiming they were protected by the Communications Decency Act, which says they're protected from being considered the "publisher" of third-party content someone posts on their site. The California Supreme Court Agreed. (They also claimed that they had not had due process because they were not part of the original case, but the CA Supreme Court did not need to rule on that issue because the Communications Decency Act determined the outcome of the case).
The law firm could still petition SCOTUS on this (contrary to what the AP coverage says, you don't "appeal" to the United States Supreme Court, you petition them for a writ of certiorari and they choose whether or not to grant it). It would be a fun argument, academically speaking. Very few people actually practice much First Amendment law, but it's a very interesting area. Obviously it's also important for a lot of businesses, because while there are lots of businesses out there with legitimately bad reviews, there are also lots of businesses out there with a couple of terrible customers who never give them a fair shake.
And because the article ridiculously didn't include a link to the court opinion, here it is: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opini...
Real lawyers write in C++