UPDATE: CA Supreme Court Grants Review of Order Requiring Yelp.com to Remove Negative Reviews of Law Firm Following Determination They Were Defamatory and Disgruntled Former Client Failed to Act

In a case which was the subject of our Alert dated June 22, 2016 (click here for prior alert), the California Supreme Court agreed on September 21, 2016 to review a lawsuit that Yelp.com warns could lead to the removal of negative reviews on the popular website. The seven-member court voted unanimously to review a lower court ruling upholding an order requiring Yelp to remove posts the court had determined were defamatory against a San Francisco law firm. Yelp seeks to overturn the ruling, claiming it could open the door for businesses to force the company to remove critical reviews.

Dawn Hassell, the law firm’s managing attorney, said in a statement to the AP that the business review website is exaggerating the stakes of her legal effort. She says it aims only to remove from Yelp lies by a former client that a judge determined were defamatory, not just negative. Though its impact is in dispute, the case is getting attention from some of the biggest internet companies in the world, which say a ruling against Yelp could stifle free speech online and effectively gut other websites whose main function is offering consumers reviews of services and businesses. Internet giants Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft said in an amicus letter to the California Supreme Court last month in support of Yelp’s petition for review that the ruling “radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent” and could be used to “silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech.”

Hassell’s 2013 lawsuit accused a client she briefly represented in a personal injury case of defaming her on Yelp by falsely claiming that her firm failed to communicate with her, among other things. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Donald Sullivan found the statements defamatory and ordered the client and Yelp to remove them. Hassell said the client failed to answer her lawsuit or remove the posts, so she had to seek a court order demanding that Yelp do so. A second Superior Court Judge granted Hassell’s motion over Yelp’s strenuous objections and the intermediate appellate court denied Yelp’s writ petition, prompting the petition for review to the Supreme Court.

Some internet commentators have predicted the Supreme Court will reverse the ruling and provide a “bright-line” rule governing future litigation regarding online reviews, upholding the First Amendment rights of internet companies sponsoring such sites. The court’s factual determination that the posts were defamatory, followed by the law firm’s former client’s failure to act to remove them, including the “due process” granted to Yelp to oppose a motion requiring the removal of the offending posts, may justify an exception to a general rule protecting internet companies from having to act on less substantive complaints.

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September 22, 2016