Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review? Online Free Speech Could Be Threatened As Judge Orders Removal of Some Yelp, Angie’s List Reviews; Poster Sued for Negative Post

1. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Online Free Speech Could Be Threatened
As Judge Orders Removal of Some Yelp,
Angie’s List Reviews; Poster Sued for
Negative Post
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

2. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• A Virginia woman must remove parts of a
review on Yelp and Angie’s List after being
sued for libel.
• Additionally, the judge ruled that she
cannot post the barred information on new
sites, and she is being sued for the
negative post.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

3. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Is this a banning of free speech, or a just a
business protecting their online reputation
?
• The implications of this are wide ranging
and could ripple throughout the internet on
sites like Yelp and beyond.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

4. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• It started when a Jane Perez asked a
Washington D.C., contractor, Christopher
Dietz, to make minor updates to her
Fairfax County townhouse.
• But as the relationship quickly turned bad,
Perez posted a very negative one star
review on Yelp and a similar poor
assessment on Angie's List.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

5. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• In June of 2011, Dietz took Perez to court
claiming that her online reviews were false
and damaging and resulted in $300,000 in
lost business.
• He sued her for more than double that
amount, $750,000.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

6. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Some of the charges levied against the
contractor included work not performed,
damage to her home and jewelry that went
missing during Dietz’s time in the house.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

7. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• The judge ruled that Perez cannot imply
that Dietz stole jewelry and those
comments must be removed and not
spread to other sites online.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

8. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Usually, as is in Virginia, libel is when
someone states or implies a false
statement is true and this cause’s harm to
their reputation.
• This differs from opinions which are
generally protected by the First
Amendment.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

9. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Reviews on sites such as Yelp are
becoming more important to professionals
such as lawyers, physicians, financial
planners, and others.
• So too are legal actions over online
reputations.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

10. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Some free speech advocates view such
suits as attempts to stifle freedom of
speech; disgruntled customers see online
posts the only way to fight back against
bad business practices by companies.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

11. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• On the other hand business owners say
they are being forced to fight back
because a false online review or post can
cause serious damage to their online
reputation and businesses.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

12. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• A trial has not been set for the court to
weigh in on the libel claims.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

13. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• What could this mean for consumers?
Internet review sites have become the
“David” against the “Golith” of bad
business dealings.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

14. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• Could a negative post against a dentist be
turned into an expensive liability for the
poster?
• What if a legitimate gripe was written
online but was pursued extensively by a
deep-pocketed legal team and resulted in
forcing the post to be removed AND the
poster to be sued.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

15. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• This could scare innocent consumers from
making online comments and greatly
reduce the freedom of the internet.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

16. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• On the other hand, there are a slew of
false, baseless and wrong reviews written
online.
• A ruling could help police the “Wild West”
of the internet reviews where anyone can
create an anonymous account and post a
scathing comment on sites like
ComplaintsBoard.com, Scam.com, and a
half dozen others.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

17. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• These sites currently are shielded by the
First Amendment, but could largely
disappear.
• Competitors have found these sites an
excellent way to tarnish and destroy a rival
company, and removing these comments
would be a victory for businesses
defending their online reputation.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

18. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• The irony is that in suing the client and the
resulting publicity surrounding the case,
Dietz’s online reputation is damaged
almost beyond repair—or much more so
than if he did nothing, addressed this
issue himself or hired an online reputation
management firm.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation

19. Can You Be Sued for A Negative Review?
• The implications of this case and others
like it that are cropping up are important to
both
free speech and online reputation managemen
.
www.recoverreputation.com
Recover 347-421-7598
Reputation