New York Law Journal

The bar is high for Defamation Lawsuits against reviewers on Yelp and “Gripe” sites.

by Fred Abramson on November 3, 2009

Larry David

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Unhappy customers are a fact of life for small businesses.  In the past, if a customer was was not pleased about the Miso Black Cod he would simply kvetch to a hundred of his closest friends and never return (unless he was Larry David).

Web 2.0 has changed the way people complain.  Disgruntled customers now spend their time logging on to Yelp, Facebook and “Gripe” sites to express their feelings to the net citizens of the world.  A  poor review on Yelp could create losses of thousands of dollars.  If the review is defamatory, should you sue?

The New York Law Journal (pay wall) reports that the bar is very high for a company to win a defamation lawsuit against an individual. In Intellectual Art Multimedia v. Milewski, New York Supreme Court Justice Hon. Judith Gische recently ruled against the company in its Internet defamation lawsuit against a customer who posted negative comments on the Rippoff Report.

Intellectual Art runs the Swiss Finance Academy which operates a school of business. It sued a customer for defamation due to a negative review. Here is a sample of the alleged defamatory comments:

  • “[t]hey tell you where the location is then a week before the program starts they change the location and say no refunds whatsoever.”
  • “everything they taught was a “JOKE.”

Judge Gische decided that the “speech [was] merely an alleged statement about [the customer’s] personal opinion about the quality of the services of the plaintiff (Intellectual Art).”  In addition, the judge ruled that on issues dealing with advocating on part of the consumer, courts are reluctant to stifle criticism of goods or services.

Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong,  small businesses can still sue a customer for defamation. If the remarks are more than criticism, contact a lawyer.  However, in this era of transparency, it is much cheaper to engage in business practices that foster trust than to start a  lawsuit.  Use Google Alerts and establish a Twitter account to monitor your brand.  If a customer is unhappy, ask him why. Companies such as Zappos built an empire on listening to their customers through social media.  So should you.

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Social Networks, Employees and Anti-Discrimination Laws.

by Fred Abramson on October 6, 2009

There is no question that the Internet has changed the way companies hire people.  Currently 45 percent of employers use social networking sites and conduct online searches to screen applicants.  If you are a job applicant, that means that your potential employer is reading you Twitter feed and analyzing your blog posts. 

While it is not illegal for an employer to to search a candidate’s social networking profiles, there are risks. In an article written by Jeffrey S. Kein and Nicholas J. Pappas for the New York Law Journal, they highlight a number of legal issues arising out of employees’ use of social networks. They list Anti-Discrimination Laws, Legal Activities Laws, National Labor Relations Act, Terms of Service Violations, Privacy Implications and Business Considerations. I will briefly discuss the the legal implications of Anti-Discrimination Laws.

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAWS

By simply viewing a candidates social networking profile, certain information can be gleaned that can be a basis for a claim under discrimination laws. For example,  if an employer views the LinkedIn profile of a candidate and the employer decides not to hire the candidate or take action within a short time because the candidate lists that she is handicapped, the employer could be held liable.  The mere fact that the employer viewed her social networking site can be used as circumstantial evidence of discrimination.

Under New York Law, an employer must use the same standards when deciding who to fire.  The authors cite an Simonetti v. Delta Airlines, where Delta decided to fire a female employee because she posted revealing photographs online. She argued that she was being discriminated against because other male flight attendants also posted similar content and were not fired.

 

 

 

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