Man Threatened With Defamation Lawsuit Over Negative Yelp Review
Man Threatened With Defamation Lawsuit Over Negative Yelp
Review
March 21, 2014 7:19 PM
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Many people use Yelp to find out
about a business before they give them their business, but one Midtown business
owner threatened to sue over some bad reviews.
As CBS 2’s Sonia Rincon reported Friday, Matthew Brand
saw the great reviews on Yelp for Ron Gordon Watch Repair, at 280 Madison Ave.
So he decided to take his watch there for repair.
But Brand was not thrilled with the service, and posted
his own review on Yelp. In the April 2013 review, he gave the repair shop two
stars, claiming that the staff at Gordon’s shop said they could not repair his
antique pocket watch, and would have to send an Ebel watch back to the
manufacturer – and claiming further that a competing store was able to repair
the two watches onsite.
But to Brand’s surprise, he received a letter from
Gordon’s attorney last week, asking him to take down the review or face a
defamation lawsuit.
The letter said Brand’s review was “misleading and in
certain respects false and defamatory of Ron Gordon in his profession, (and)
has also appeared on Google and has detrimentally affected his business and
sales.”
“That’s bullying. You know, that’s saying: ‘I have more
money than you. Take down your post,’” Brand said. “It’s being aggressive, and
it’s just not right.”
But what if you are the small business owner and people
don’t love you on Yelp? Do you post a response, just ignore it, or call a
lawyer?
Gordon said he called his lawyer because he believed what
was in Brand’s review, and a few others, was not true. He wanted the reviews
gone.
“What Mr. Brand did write was defamatory, and it is a
ground for a suit, because by implication, the statements would make Mr. Gordon
appear incompetent as a businessman, which is hardly the case,” said attorney
Andrew Spinnell. “The man’s been in business for 33 years and repairs high-end
watches successfully. If you look on Yelp, he has many 5-star reviews.”
But now, Gordon is getting scathing reviews, over the
threatened lawsuit — getting called a bully, and worse.
“I don’t even know who these people are,” Gordon said.
“They’re not even about my business.”
Law professor Leon Friedman said libel cases are really
hard to win – a plaintiff has to prove something was both false and ruined
someone’s reputation.
“Reviews are protected speech. If you simply make your
opinion, ‘This is terrible, this is awful’ — you use adjectives to describe it
– (it’s) not libelous,” said Friedman, of Hofstra University.
So what’s a small businessman to do?
“Respond to it,” Friedman said. “When someone says
something bad, you put a comment on it and tell your side of the story.”
And if you’re a reviewer posting an honest experience or
opinion, Freeman said, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Spinnell said that Gordon has no plans to go ahead with
any of the threatened lawsuits.
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