Court: Business can sue for social media defamation

Ater Wynne LLP
NW Law frim

Target of social media criticism can sue for defamation, Oregon Court of Appeals holds

The Oregon Court of Appeals recently held that a business owner can pursue a defamation claim against an individual who posted a negative on-line review. In Neumann v. Liles, plaintiff, who operates a wedding venue, was the target of a review on google.com calling her, among other things, “two faced, crooked, and . . . rude.” She sued the author of the review, who had been a guest at a wedding hosted at plaintiff’s venue.

The on-line critic in response filed a “special motion to strike” under Oregon’s SLAPP statute. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” and the anti-SLAPP statute creates a procedure for dismissing at an early stage an unfounded lawsuit designed to quash speech or activism on issues of public interest. While the statute protects certain speech-related activities, it does not shield defendants who engage in defamatory speech.

According to the Court of Appeals, the trial court should not have granted the anti-SLAPP motion to strike the complaint because plaintiff had offered sufficient evidence that the review was in fact defamatory. While defendant claimed that the review represented his opinion and was merely “figurative, rhetorical, or hyperbolic,” the Court of Appeals concluded that most of the post was “nonrhetorical and factual” and contained specific, potentially defamatory, statements about plaintiff’s honesty and business ethics. Accordingly, the trial court should have allowed the case to proceed to trial.

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