A Canadian court has sent a message along with a CA$30,000 award to a small personal injury firm over a disgruntled client’s Google review: Stop and take a deep breath before you vent online.
“Online comments are easy to do and seem distant and not accountable. But they are not. The defendant is responsible for her conduct,” wrote Ontario Superior Court Justice Phillip Sutherland.
James Cook, a partner at Toronto law firm Gardiner Roberts whose practice includes professional liability for lawyers, wrote in a blog post that the decision serves as a warning to others that damages may be awarded for defamatory online reviews.
Name partners Elio D’Alessio and Robert Romero of D’Alessio Romero Law Firm, located just north of Toronto, sued former client Vicky Sadia Chowdhury after their solicitor-client relationship soured and Chowdhury took to the internet to vent her frustration.
Her Google business review of the firm called it “highly negligent” and said its lawyers and staff were “highly unprofessional,” and “not trustworthy.” She called D’Alessio a “shady, pathetic and awful lawyer.”
The next day, the firm responded, saying the review was malicious and false, threatening to sue their former client if the post wasn’t retracted with an apology. She refused and the firm sued her for libel.
Three months after posting the review, Chowdhury did remove it.
Too late, said the judge. Removing the post after it’d been available publicly for months didn’t change the fact that her words impugned the reputation of the lawyers and their firm, he said.
Chowdhury, who represented herself, did not offer much of a defense, said the judge.
In his summary judgment decision, Sutherland said he was sending a “clear message … that such form of comments on an internet platform do not insulate someone from legal repercussions.”
The judge granted the lawyers CA$20,000 in damages and CA$9,500 in costs.
