The National Trial Lawyers
  • Home
    • Meet Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Mission & Goals
    • FAQ
  • Webinars
  • News
  • Membership Directory
    • Top 100 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 100 Map – Criminal Defense
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Criminal Defense
  • Top 100
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 100 President’s Message
    • Diplomat
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 100 Badge
    • Media
  • Top 40
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Bootcamp
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 40 President’s Message
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 40 Badge
    • Media
  • Specialty Assoc
    • About
    • Shop
    • Officers
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Media
  • Nominate
    • Top 100
    • Top 40
    • Specialty Association
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer of the Year
    • Trial Team of the Year
    • America’s Most Influential Trial Lawyer
    • America’s Most Influential Law Firm
    • Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Shop
  • Magazine
    • A-List
  • Education and Networking Agenda
    • Trial Lawyers Summit
      • Summit Sponsors
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Boot Camp
    • Mass Torts Made Perfect
    • The Lanier Master Class 5.0 Trial Academy 2021
    • Webinars
  • Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame

Yelp Must Unmask Negative Online Commenter

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Larry Bodine

yelp-bad-reviews

By John Feldman and Kimberly R. Chow, Reed Smith

A judge in Boston ruled on September 15 that Yelp must reveal the identity of an anonymous commenter who wrote a negative review of a jeweler on the online review site.

This is the latest in a series of attempts by libel plaintiffs and the government to force content hosts to unmask anonymous commenters.

Content hosts have argued that the First Amendment protects the right to speak anonymously, and that identifying online commenters threatens to chill freedom of expression on the Internet.

Boston Municipal Judge Robert J. McKenna Jr.’s ruling that Yelp must disclose a commenter’s identity stands in contrast to a recent Virginia Supreme Court case holding that a subpoena to Yelp for reviewers’ identities could not be enforced. Yelp is not a party in the defamation suit of the jeweler against the commenter.

Was she really a customer?

The commenter, identified in the suit as Linda G. Doe, left a negative review of Pageo, a jewelry store in Boston, on Yelp. She claimed that the owner had maliciously paid her a price much less than the worth of the jewelry she sold him. The owner, George Pelz, sued Doe in Boston Municipal Court and issued a subpoena to Yelp to discover Doe’s true identity.  Pelz argued that he could tell that Doe was not an actual customer of his store because she claimed to have been a frequent customer and he was familiar with his longtime clients.

This latest ruling that Yelp must disclose the identities of anonymous commenters heralds possible difficulties for content hosts.

Yelp argued that under the First Amendment, protection of anonymous commentary is vital to encouraging contributions to the public marketplace of ideas.  Additionally, Yelp challenged the court’s jurisdiction over the case, maintaining that California was the proper forum for adjudication.  In California, at least one court has found that the right to comment anonymously is protected under the state constitution.

Tthe Virginia Supreme Court ruled in April in the case Yelp v. Hadeed Carpet Cleaning, Inc. that, while a local court could exercise personal jurisdiction over out-of-state, nonresident parties to Virginia actions, it could not force those parties to produce documents located out of state.  Thus, since Yelp was headquartered in California, the subpoena for the identities of Yelp commenters must be issued there and not in Virginia, where the plaintiff’s business was based.  The court did not reach the First Amendment implications of the subpoena.

This latest holding that Yelp must unmask anonymous commenters heralds possible difficulties for content hosts, if courts discount First Amendment and jurisdictional reasons to deny subpoena enforcement.  However, other courts around the country have quashed these subpoenas, and Yelp and other content hosts are fighting hard for that trend to continue.

Posted in Blog, Consumer Protection, Personal Injury

Comments are closed.

News Categories

Subscribe to Blog and VFJ via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog, the Voice for Justice and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Read about other Top Jury Verdicts

Toyota Will Pay $180M to Settle Violations of the Clean-Air Act

Toyota Will Pay $180M to Settle Violations of the Clean-Air Act

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that the United States has[Read More...]
Boeing's Insitu Will Pay $25M to Settle a Whistleblower Complaint About Used Drone Parts

Boeing's Insitu Will Pay $25M to Settle a Whistleblower Complaint About Used Drone Parts

Bingen, Wash.-based Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary, has agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations that it used recycl[Read More...]
Deutsche Bank Agrees to Settle Criminal and Civil Charges for $130M

Deutsche Bank Agrees to Settle Criminal and Civil Charges for $130M

DEUTSCHE Bank AG agreed to pay US$130 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it bribed foreign officials and manip[Read More...]
Boeing Pays $2.5B to Settle Charges Tied to the 737 MAX Crashes

Boeing Pays $2.5B to Settle Charges Tied to the 737 MAX Crashes

Boeing has agreed to pay just over $2.5 billion to resolve a federal charge of “criminal misconduct” for how its [Read More...]
Texas Attorney General Seeks $43M in Google Antitrust Lawsuit

Texas Attorney General Seeks $43M in Google Antitrust Lawsuit

The mass exodus of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's top staff over accusations of bribery against their former boss has le[Read More...]

#LegalNews

@@TheNTLtop100

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Attorney information and content provided on this website is provided for the benefit of members of The National Trial Lawyers and as a public service by Legal Associations Management, Inc. The website and all data are the property of Legal Associations Management, Inc. Data, including without limitation attorney information and content, on the site may not be mined, sold, or used commercially for any purpose without the explicit written consent of Legal Associations Management, Inc. This site may not be accessed by any automated program for extracting data for any use. By accessing and using the site you agree that you will not develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plug-ins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape data or otherwise copy profiles and other data. Unauthorized use or attempted unauthorized use of this system may subject you to both civil and criminal penalties.