General Music Chat

When my daughter got married we rented a house near the wedding site, and for the most part everything went just fine.

Except for the afternoon of the wedding when the lady that rents the place came by and lit into my daughter as she was leaving , in her wedding dress.complaining that someone was blocking her garbage cans. This really upset my daughter who was already emotional. But she got over it and the wedding went off without a hitch.
After that we all felt like we were being watched and it made everyone uncomfortable.
Well...we cleaned the place really well and no problems...we got our damage deposit back.

Well my daughter wrote them a somewhat bad review on the website that we found them on explaining just what happened and how it was a black mark on an otherwise perfect day.

Well I get this call from this woman's husband saying that if we didn't take down the review he's going to sue us for defamation of character and breach of contract explaining a bunch of bullsh*t ways we violated the contract (Even though we got our deposit back)
What this yahoo doesn't know is that my daughter married into a family of lawyers....

Has anyone ever heard of someone being sued over a website review?

You have to be careful when dissing a business on ANY public forum, which a website is. I had one of my former customers put a mediocre review on ANgie's List (I'm a contractor). I called ANgie's List and suggested they take down the review because there was erroneous information on it. They didn't and I called them back a few days later threatening legal action and they took it down. Angie's List has for years been trying to get me to buy their advertising. I told them they put customer reviews about businesses out to the world WITHOUT VERIFYING THE INFORMATION WITH THE BUSINESSES. I had an attorney who was ready, willing, and able to take legal action. I would suggest kindly taking down your public review. You can privately tell people what a lousy job they did, but a public forum can get your ass sued...

there has to be actual damages from and factual errors in the review.

They don't have a leg to stand on.

People can't sue over a review of their business practices, especially if it's true.

If you report a "true" incident and your thoughts that it "marred an otherwise perfect day," they can't sue you for that. It's an opinion.

If you make a false report that say you have a dirty hotel, with cat feces and stuff like that lying around, especially if you can prove the person works for a rival hotel or was hired by a rival hotel or is any way connected to someone at that hotel and there's evidence suggesting that there's an intent to harm character, then you have a case.

Slander, libel, defamation have to prove an intent to harm and you have to show evidence that harm was done based on the lie, and not just you saw it and had a panic attack. If anything, getting your deposit back, you can prove retaliation back on them for making false claims to coerce you to take down your review, especially if you have evidence of that in writing or on tape.

People writing a true experience based on their opinion, especially if it is substantiated by evidence cannot be sued. It has to be a fabricated, a lie or false report and proven to be so.

For instance, if someone see's their friend kissing a man then goes on Facebook and says they saw it and their friend is gay. They can't sue for defamation. If the event didn't happen and there's no evidence to support that, then that person can be sued for harassment and defamation of character.

A lot of people have no idea how the law works and just because it looks like a duck, in law, doesn't mean it's so.

Chaeya

In my opinion as a 20 year self employed businessman, I would say the best way to lodge a complaint is with the Better Business Bureau if there's one in your area and TELL THE BUSINESS YOU ARE LODGING A COMPLAINT THERE. A lot of businesses are accredited members of the BBB and have the option of having your grievances heard before an arbitration board, thus avoiding any legal hassles. I just think it's dangerous and you CAN be sued and you CAN lose. Whether you have a leg to stand on or not is irrelevant, if the wrong judge hears your case you could LOSE. BBB arbitration is the way to go if that's possible.

I've been a business man in a previous life and I know enough law to know that anyone can sue anyone regardless of having a case or not.

The rub is you have to pay to defend yourself.

I'm sure this guy thinks his wife didn't say anything wrong, lucky for us that we had a photographer, and a shuttle driver, both unrelated to our group, that said this woman was a first class bitch.

It really isn't that important to me, I'd just a soon take down the review, but now it's in my daughters hands and her new Mother in law...the lawyer...... who have become upset by this guys strong arm tactics...

I'm the lessee though and I'm ultimately responsible. and one thing I do know.....

As you say......Any body can win in court on any given day regardless of the case. The judge may have just been sued for renting out his house for something...you always take a chance by going to court.

I don't plan on letting it go that far.......Good Advise Bob....

Good Grief just pull down the review!

I try personally to put the crap I encounter in my life behind me as fast as possible, and believe me Ive had my share. Otherwise you get caught up in the drama of it all. Ive had many friends thru the years that I liked a lot but they always have drama around them, so what do I do? I cut ties with them. You cant move on with baggage in your system, let it go and move on!

Good Luck

You could hire some Ninja and eliminate the problem for everyone.

These are called SLAPP lawsuits and depending on the state, some have anti-SLAPP laws. Honestly, from what your daughter said, this case wouldn't stand up and I see a variety of ways where your daughter could turn it around in her favor.

JW, I understand no one likes drama, least of all myself, but SLAPP lawsuits are there to scare and bully people. This is more than drama, this is a case of someone violating your freedom to express yourself and freedom to tell people the truth. If this chick is a righteous bitch, people should know about it. That's what review sites are for, to share your experience. A business owes a right to the public to do the right thing, to offer a good service, if they don't do that, they should know.

This case would prevail because:

1. This is a true incident and there were witnesses showing that this woman made an ass out of herself.

2. There is nothing in what she wrote which would suggest she was out to harass, defame or libel this woman. Also, they cannot claim breach of contract if they already returned the deposit. This would show that they only claimed breach of contract in retaliation of the review, this would only prove to hurt them.

I could fight this case in pro per and crap all over these two with a simple Order to Show Cause. Meaning, they'd have to produce evidence that they've been harmed by what I wrote, they'd have to produce the contract and what I supposedly breached, then they'd have to produce an explanation as to why they returned my deposit if I supposed breached the contract. The return of the deposit is simple enough evidence. However, in the future, this is why I always tell folks to take exit photos when they leave a rented building. This way the landlord can't come back and state they messed the place up or damaged it. I would take the pictures with a disposable camera then get them developed the old fashioned way showing the date of the pictures.

3. A lawyer in his right mind wouldn't touch this because less than 10% of SLAPP lawsuits win. More than half wind up winning a decision for the person being sued, meaning the daughter can come out the victor in this case.

Here are the States and you can see which states have enacted anti-SLAPP laws:

http://www.legal-project.org/149/anti-s ... s-by-state

Here's the wiki on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_ ... ticipation

Here's one such article that's good: http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/06/3 ... a-lawsuit/

So have fun.

Chaeya

Speaking of freedoms, this is funny too!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/11 ... st-things/

Chaeya

Gosh, people seem to be such pussies these days!

Lets see back to the original post

A house rented for a wedding and deposit placed

Trash cans are blocked and the owner maybe gets a little outta hand with the bride, more than likely both sides got a little outta hand. Simple thing to do would be to say hey ok I will move the car outta the way or whatever.

Deposit is returned, nothing said in that about the socalled skirmish

So bride writes a bunch of bull on a review

Owners husband calls and says Im gonna sue for whatever reason

Is that it in a nutshell, did I miss something



C and K I change my position on this

Tell the owners husband to just f**k off and sue me, simple enough

More than likely nothing will come of it

But what if the owner does pursue this? Doesnt really matter who is right or wrong at this point cause we have a court case here.

Probably take 2-6 monthes to get this figured out in court, need a lawyer, of course once we prove its nothing then the plaitiff can pay the tab right? How many of you have been in something like this? Ive been involved in quite a few cases like this.

So lets take 2-6 monthes, no telling how many legal bills, that may or may not be paid, al the time stress and effort that goes into this t sort of thing. Yea go f**k off and sue me

All because someone asked someone to move a vehicle or two so someone could get to a garbage can. LOL

go ahead hammer me for being a pu**y, it aint the first time, but as I said earlier you make your own drama, in my world this whole deal is totally unnecesary, and I said my world, not the others that replyed, but in mine

Remember the case where the dry cleaner damaged the guys shirt, the dry cleaner offered to replace the shirt, the guy didnt want the new shirt he wanted all these damages, I think the dry cleaner wound up paying over a 100,000 dollars in legal fees over a 30 dollar shirt