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A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

latimes.com

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Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#31

Post by Sanddancer »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #28
jrockway wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears they won by default. The defendant never showed up to court, and may have never been served papers.

Sure, they should be awarded damages and maybe fees. Is a Yelp review worth $550k in damages? Ever? Is the court system so broken to think that $550k is a reasonable amount of attorneys fees? For a case won by default? This isn't an assault on liberty, rather, it's a silent knife in the kidney. This is the kind of ruling that allows liberty to die with a whimper, drowned in a sea of procedure and 'sure, but maybe if'…

That's how default judgements have always been. The person ignored their chance to plead their side of the case, and thus they don't get a say in what the damages are ordered, and the only figures the court has are what the plaintiff asked for. If you don't want to have the exhorbitant amounts usually asked for in an initial suit, show up to court.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#32

Post by mgleason_3 »

jrockway wrote: post #25
vinhboy wrote: post #20

I don't know why most of the comments on here, so far, are so nonchalant about this. > Hassell sued Bird for libel and won a judgment for more than $550,000 in damages and costs, as well as an injunction ordering Bird to remove the ostensibly defamatory material from Yelp This is fucking nuts. How can someone be sued for $550K for writing a bad yelp review. Can someone please explain why the law allows for ridiculous…

It appears they won by default. The defendant never showed up to court, and may have never been served papers.

How can you win when the defendant hasn't been served?

You can't just some random house or even a former residence. The papers actually have to be given to the defendant, right?

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#33

Post by morecoffee »

Can Yelp have it both ways? It seems Bird was ordered to remove the comment, but Hassel couldn't prove she made them.

Yelp would either have to say that Bird made the comments, and absolve themselves of responsibility, or instead become responsible. Otherwise it would seem that any anonymous comment could be used to skip libel penalties. Surely there has to be precedent for this in the past few years.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#34

Post by icantdrive55 »

pstrateman wrote: post #29
ap22213 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this probably happens much more frequently than people may realize. I once gave a doctor a bad Yelp review and was very careful to avoid stating anything that could be claimed as libel - I only stated very specific and accurate facts and my opinions of them. They still seemed to try to come after me for libel (but quickly gave up). Interestingly, I had even used a throwaway email address and Yelp account. But…

> the Doctor responded directly to my review, calling me out by name and essentially calling me a liar (I wasn't) That seems likely it would violate HIPAA in some way...

We have a plastic surgeon, in in my county, that pissed off a lot of patients. She must have over 50 negative reviews. Well she sued most of them. I think the lawyer sued 45 of them. The judge ruled against all the lawsuits. All thrown out of court.

Now, the physician resorts to describing what was physically wrong with the patient online in a rebuttal. For instance, "Susan--you seemed happy when we removed those ugly brown spots I removed?"

I've been suprised she hasen't been accused of voilating HIPPA either.

I don't use Yelp. I honestly try to stay away from most doctors--just don't like most of them. Out of all the professions, MD's seem to dislike Yelp the most. Gone are the days where they can treat patients like dirt, and the patient has no recourse--other than dying. It's too bad that physicians are so arrogant. I don't get it. The last twenty years have exposed the profession to be so much of an art?

(I do try to recognize the Doctor who is taking on hard cases, and give that Doctor a large benefit of the doubt. For instance, the medi-cal Doctor gets a get out of jail free card, but most of the negative reviews are for the doctors who are charging $350.00 hr, in good areas of the county?)

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#35

Post by enraged_camel »

icantdrive55 wrote: post #34
pstrateman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Doctor responded directly to my review, calling me out by name and essentially calling me a liar (I wasn't) That seems likely it would violate HIPAA in some way...

We have a plastic surgeon, in in my county, that pissed off a lot of patients. She must have over 50 negative reviews. Well she sued most of them. I think the lawyer sued 45 of them. The judge ruled against all the lawsuits. All thrown out of court. Now, the physician resorts to describing what was physically wrong with the patient online in a rebuttal. For instance, "Susan--you seemed happy when we removed those ugl…

I'm sorry you have had such bad experiences with doctors.

Doctors dislike review sites in general. The reason is that, in the age of the Internet, patients think they know everything. A lot of them go to the doctor and demand a prescription for a certain drug because they read on the Internet that it would cure their condition. When the doctor refuses (for obvious reasons) the patient gives them a 1-star review.

That's just one example of how patients can be real assholes and why doctors don't like review sites.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#36

Post by ramblenode »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #32
jrockway wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears they won by default. The defendant never showed up to court, and may have never been served papers.

How can you win when the defendant hasn't been served? You can't just some random house or even a former residence. The papers actually have to be given to the defendant, right?

(Disclaimer: not an attorney; someone with more knowledge feel free to correct me)

At least for civil cases in some states, the plaintiff only needs to make a "good faith" attempt at serving the defendant (specific requirements for this may be enumerated). After a certain amount of time has passed without a reply, a trial date can be set and the case can proceed.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#37

Post by gcb0 »

twblalock wrote: post #4
gcb0 wrote: post #3

B.S. this is orders of magnitude less significant than big studios removing random youtube videos from the air, accusing them of copyright infringement, even ones that have no background music, just because it says bad things about something the studio worked on.

Actually, this is far more significant than YouTube videos being taken down. If Yelp loses, this case could make it possible for pretty much any site that accepts user comments, including YouTube, social networks like Facebook, review sites, advertising sites like Craiglist, and even personal blogs with comment sections, to be held accountable for what users post. That could lead to a significant amount of prior rest…

the court was not holding yelp accountable, they asked yelp to remove a post that a jury found to be criminal.

YouTube silences you without a court order or anything.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#38

Post by bkor »

Sanddancer wrote: post #31
GauntletWizard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they should be awarded damages and maybe fees. Is a Yelp review worth $550k in damages? Ever? Is the court system so broken to think that $550k is a reasonable amount of attorneys fees? For a case won by default? This isn't an assault on liberty, rather, it's a silent knife in the kidney. This is the kind of ruling that allows liberty to die with a whimper, drowned in a sea of procedure and 'sure, but maybe if'…

That's how default judgements have always been. The person ignored their chance to plead their side of the case, and thus they don't get a say in what the damages are ordered, and the only figures the court has are what the plaintiff asked for. If you don't want to have the exhorbitant amounts usually asked for in an initial suit, show up to court.

> If you don't want to have the exhorbitant amounts usually asked for in an initial suit, show up to court.

That's not reasonable. If the person for whatever reason doesn't show up, but it is a company vs a person lawsuit, then granting everything doesn't make any sense. There could be various reasons why the person didn't show up.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#39

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Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#40

Post by magicalist »

twblalock wrote: post #13
lambdasquirrel wrote: post #11

So, what if sites only have to remove the content if it's been ruled as defamatory? If it's some dumb little thing like an immature comment on a Youtube video, no big deal. If it's something injurious like a bad review on something that matters, then yeah, should be taken down. Am I missing something here?

The courts might make an exception for defamatory or libelous content, or they might undermine section 230 to the extent that it no longer works well, or they might reject it entirely. If section 230 is struck down, the consequences will not be limited to defamatory or libelous content.

> If section 230 is struck down

to be clear here: a federal law cannot be struck down by a state court.

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