Anti-SLAPP laws – Defamation lawsuit thrown out of court

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a woodbridge windows company was ordered
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to pay
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more than one hundred thousand dollars
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to a negative reviewer because the judge
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said the company was trying to quote
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bully them here with a closer look at
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this case is tonya walker from walker
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law good morning nice to talk to you
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again nice to see you
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good morning thank you for having me
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it’s great to see you this is such an
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interesting case right ultimately this
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company lost due to what they called an
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anti-slap motion so what is that walk us
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through that
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okay well anti-slack legislation was
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actually introduced in 2015 and it
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stands for strategic lawsuits against
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public participation and what this means
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is that someone cannot essentially slap
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you with a defamation lawsuit in a
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situation where you post an online
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review
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about your experience with the business
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the judicial system wants to protect
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your rights to freedom of expression
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without being afraid of being sued
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so if someone sues you for a review that
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you posted online the legislation allows
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you to make a request to a judge in a
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motion that’s what it’s called
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to have that lawsuit essentially
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dismissed
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and when you make this request the other
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side must show evidence such as you will
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not win the lawsuit in order to actually
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win that motion
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so if the this lawsuit is dismissed that
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legislation provides that the judge may
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order that a hundred percent of your
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legal fees be repaid to you
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where normally in civil litigation a
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judge is open to order that’s between 60
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to 80 of your legal fee paid back to you
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i don’t know if you know like the
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absolute specifics of this case but it
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got me thinking i was like what did they
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say in the review that had this company
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so
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like angry and annoyed and going after
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them do you know that
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yes i read the case i’ll summarize it
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because it was it’s 30 pages right
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so what happened here is that they
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posted three online reviews and they
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essentially said
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explain their experience that it they
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thought there was bad customer service
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that they were told that the source of
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the leaks was uh problems with their
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home but then a year later a contractor
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came over and fixed the leak and the
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leak was caused to them
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by uh the one of the window products so
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that’s what got the windows company very
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very upset because the windows company
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said listen you had pre-existing issues
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it wasn’t through us the problem is that
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the windows company did not provide any
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expert evidence to demonstrate that the
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problems the leaks in the home were
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actually caused by pre-existing issues
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the outcome might have been different if
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that had evidence had been produced and
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the outcome was in this
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the outcome was that the honorable
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justice meyer said you cannot silence
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people you cannot bully people and as a
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result i’m going to order that this
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lawsuit be thrown out of court and that
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you pay full legal costs in the amount
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of 164 000
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to that reviewer and the judge also said
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this review was a matter of public
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interest can you explain that decision
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yes because yes judge said that this is
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a matter of public interest because
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people want to read reviews people want
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to learn about experiences with
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companies before they make buying
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decisions so this is a matter of
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interest to the public and somebody’s
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freedom of expression should not be
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silenced due to a definition lawsuit so
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tony if someone’s writing a negative
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review what do they need to keep in mind
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to make sure they’re not legal legally
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vulnerable
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well a couple tips i would say
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give your opinion only on state facts
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that you can back up
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don’t only discuss your individual
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experience with the company don’t leave
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comments based on rumors be truthful
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not malicious or vindictive sometimes i
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suggest waiting 24 hours before you
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actually post your review because keep
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in mind your review may end up before
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court and before a judge so it does
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there’s no harm in waiting a day or so
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to post it yeah and don’t assume because
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you use an alias an alias you’re
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anonymous um i dealt with a situation
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where my client was being harassed
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online and i made a request to a judge
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for that online review company to
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produce their records of that person who
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made those comments those online review
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companies don’t usually oppose these
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these requests they don’t usually
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consent and so we were able to get an
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order for those records to be produced
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and consequently we found out who the
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person was and we were able to sue that
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person for defamation wow it’s
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absolutely fascinating tonya walker
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always great to have you on thank you
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thank you for having me all right don’t
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go anywhere everybody we’ll be right
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