Your organization may become the subject of negative comments on its social media page or a third party site. How should you react? A review of two recent contested incidents may be useful.
Jane Perez wrote a negative Yelp review of Dietz Development accusing the company of damaging her home and stealing personal property. As a result of the review, Dietz filed a $750,000 defamation claim against Perez, who filed a defamation counterclaim against Dietz. A five-day jury trial took place last month in Virginia. The jury concluded that Perez and Dietz were each liable for defamation, but did not award damages to either party.
In a separate incident in 2008, Jen Palmer, a customer of KlearGear.com, wrote a negative review on Ripoffreport.com. Upon KlearGear’s request, Palmer tried to take the review down, but Ripoffreport would not remove it. Last year, Palmer’s husband received an email from KlearGear demanding $3500 for his wife’s failure to take down the negative review, a claimed violation of the company’s online terms of use. KlearGear later reported the $3500 “debt” as delinquent on Mr. Palmer’s credit report. In December 2013, Palmers sued KlearGear for alleged violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Source: Ossian Law
Kathy Ossian is one of GreeningDetroit.com’s attorneys and counselors at law. Kathy is Founder and CEO of Ossian Law, P.C., a firm focused exclusively on Information Technology Law. Kathy is a former Senior Principal at Miller Canfield where she headed up the firm’s Information Technology & Cyberlaw Section. Kathy has almost 30 years of legal experience and over 16 years of Information Technology law expertise.