Opinion Category Archives — Page 3 of 4 — The Virginia Defamation Law Blog Published by Reston Defamation Attorney — Virginia Slander & Libel Lawyer

July 29, 2013

Mann’s Defamation Suit Survives Anti-SLAPP Motion

Well-known climate scientist Michael Mann made good on his threat to sue the National Review and columnist Mark Steyn for defamation based on statements made online questioning Mann’s global warming research. In response, the defendants filed a special motion to dismiss under D.C.’s anti-SLAPP statute, arguing that the online statements were made in furtherance of the right of advocacy on an issue of public interest. The court found that the anti-SLAPP statute did apply but nevertheless denied the motion.

Mann is a professor of meteorology and the Director of the Early System Science Center at Penn State. He is well known for his research on global warming and has published papers and books on the subject. The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) exchanged emails with Mann which were later misappropriated. In one email, a CRU scientist referred to Mann’s “nature trick” of adding in real temperatures for the last twenty years and from 1961 to “hide the decline.” Upon discovery of the emails, the University of East Anglia investigated the matter and concluded that the honesty and rigor of the CRU scientists was not in doubt but that the email referencing Mann’s “nature trick” was misleading.

In 2010, Penn State initiated an investigation of Mann and the CRU emails. The investigatory committee was comprised entirely of Penn State faculty members. Based on an interview with Mann, the committee cleared Mann of three of four charges against him. The last charge involved an allegation that Mann’s research might deviate from accepted norms. The committee interviewed an MIT professor who was critical of Mann’s work and later expressed dismay with the scope of the investigation and the committee’s analysis of the CRU emails.

April 15, 2013

Overzealous Pleading Doesn’t Advance Your Cause

by Lee E. Berlik

Travel agent John Mathews may have a meritorious claim against a Virginia hotel for breaching a contract to provide food for a large group of tourists. It’s hard to tell, though, when he clutters his complaint with counts for defamation, invasion of privacy, tortious interference, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fails to include a count for breach of contract. This latest complaint represents Mr. Mathews’ fourth attempt to present his case to a federal court in Pennsylvania. Had he opted to file a simple breach-of-contract action in Virginia’s general district court instead, he might have secured a judgment by now.

The allegations go as follows. Mr. Mathews booked a “Winter Get Away Tour” with the Westin hotel at Washington Dulles in 2012. He alleges he planned the event with the hotel sales manager and estimated there would be 150 guests with the tour. He claims he emphasized that this was only an estimate and he would furnish a final number later.

When 174 people signed up for the getaway (or rather, the “get away”), the hotel was not able to feed everyone, as the head chef apparently wasn’t notified of the final number. On both Saturday and Sunday nights, some guests went without meals and an unlimited, all-you-can-eat buffet was converted to a limited, one-serving one. Mathews had advertised the tour to include two buffet dinners and two buffet breakfasts and claims he had to reimburse many guests due to the missed or reduced meals.

March 1, 2013

Fabricated Quotations Actionable if Harmful to Reputation

by Lee E. Berlik

An essential requirement of any defamation action is that the alleged statement convey factual assertions. Pure expressions of opinion (i.e., those that neither state directly nor imply any assertion of objective fact) are protected by both the First Amendment and Section 12 of the Virginia Constitution. Whether a particular statement should be classified as fact or opinion is a threshold issue for the court to decide. Consequently, many libel and slander cases are dismissed at the outset and never reach a jury.

There’s not always a bright line between the two, and sometimes courts get it wrong. Yesterday, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed the decision of a Halifax County court to dismiss a defamation action on the ground the statement constituted opinion and not fact. The statement at issue was this: “Tharpe told me that Tharpe was going to screw the Authority like he did Fort Pickett.”

It’s certainly tempting to treat a statement like this as opinion, because whether or not someone got “screwed” is subject to differing viewpoints. But look closely. The speaker is not making the claim that Tharpe screwed the Authority or screwed Fort Pickett. What he is saying is that Tharpe TOLD him these things. Tharpe’s position in the trial court was that he never made such a statement. So the issue wasn’t whether or not getting “screwed” is a matter of fact or opinion, but whether it was a factual assertion to claim that Tharpe made this particular statement. The Virginia Supreme Court held that it was “indisputably capable of being proven true or false.”

September 11, 2012

“Dirtiest Hotels” List is Rhetorical Hyperbole and Not Grounds for Defamation Action

by Lee E. Berlik

Kenneth M. Seaton, sole proprietor of the Grant Resort Hotel and Convention Center in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, brought a defamation action against TripAdvisor after the hotel was identified by the travel site as the dirtiest hotel in America. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, however, found that TripAdvisor’s list of “2011 Dirtiest Hotels” could not support a defamation claim and dismissed the case on August 22, 2012.

TripAdvisor relies solely on customer reviews to compile its “Dirtiest Hotels” list – it does not conduct an independent investigation of each hotel. Seaton claimed that TripAdvisor attempted to assure the public that its list is factual, reliable and trustworthy by including the following statements along with its list: (1) “World’s Most Trusted Travel Advice”; (2) “TripAdvisor lifts the lid on America’s Dirtiest Hotels”; (3) “Top 10 U.S. Crime-Scenes Revealed, According to Traveler Cleanliness Ratings”; (4) “Now, in its sixth year, and true to its promise to share the whole truth about hotels to help travelers plan their trips, TripAdvisor names and shames the nation’s most hair-raising hotels”; (5) “This year, the tarnished title of America’s dirtiest hotel goes to Grand Resort Hotel and Convention Center, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.” The list quoted a TripAdvisor user: “There was dirt at least ½ inch thick in the bathtub which was filled with lots of dark hair.” The list also featured a photograph of a ripped bedspread.

Defamation claims require proof of false statements or false implications. Seaton contended that by publishing its “2011 Dirtiest Hotels” list, TripAdvisor was implying that the Grand Resort Hotel and Convention Center was, in fact, the dirtiest hotel in the United States and that a reasonable person reading the list would consider this supposed fact in making their travel plans. Seaton argued that the list was not mere hyperbole because it contained actual numerical rankings with comments suggesting that the rankings were based in actual fact.

August 13, 2012

Doctor’s Defamation Claim Reconsidered by Judge Roush

by Lee E. Berlik

Judge Jane Marum Roush of the Fairfax Circuit Court has allowed Dr. Adel Kebaish to amend his complaint against Inova Fairfax Hospital to include four additional statements claimed to be defamatory. Judge Roush had previously found the alleged statements non-actionable but was persuaded by the plaintiff’s attorneys to partially reconsider her earlier ruling.

Dr. Kebaish was an orthopedic and spine trauma surgeon at Inova Fairfax Hospital. Dr. Kebaish claims that Inova and several of its doctors and physician assistants defamed him and that Inova terminated him for objecting to substandard care and fraudulent billing practices. He filed a complaint against Inova, one of its administrators and ten of its doctors and physician assistants alleging causes of action for defamation per se as well as other business torts. The defendants demurred on various grounds.

The court reviewed each of the allegedly defamatory statements in the complaint and agreed with Inova that most of the statements were either statements of opinion, not actionable as defamation, or made by persons who were not named as defendants. To successfully state a claim for defamation in Virginia, a plaintiff must show that the defendant published a false factual statement that harms the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s reputation. Expressions of opinion are constitutionally protected and are not actionable as defamation.

August 6, 2012

Target of Online Griping Files Defamation Action

by Lee E. Berlik

Fairfax-based Direct Connect, LLC, a credit card processing company, has sued Inkthis, LLC, and its owner, Debra Sachs, for alleged defamation and tortious interference with contract. Direct Connect is upset about certain statements posted on Inkthis’ Facebook wall, including one that referred to Direct Connect as “a bunch of thieves.” The defendants recently removed the case from Fairfax Circuit Court to federal court in Alexandria.

The Facebook posts describe the author’s frustration with certain business practices of Direct Connect, including what the author believed to be excessive charges debited from Inkthis’ bank accounts. Direct Connect says the statements are false, that the defendants knew the statements were false when they made them and, by publishing descriptions of the company that included words like “inept,” “horrible,” and “thieves,” the statements harmed Direct Connect’s reputation.

Statements that are relative in nature and depend largely upon the speaker’s viewpoint are generally considered expressions of opinion. Opinions cannot form the basis of a defamation action as they are protected by the First Amendment and generally cannot be interpreted as stating a provably false fact, a prerequisite for any defamation claim. Thus, referring to Direct Connect as “inept” and “horrible” will likely be deemed non-actionable opinion. Referring to the company as “a bunch of thieves” presents a closer question.

July 22, 2012

No Defamation Claim for Medical Resident’s Poor Performance Evaluation

by Lee E. Berlik

Employment reviews often lead to libel allegations due to the fact they often contain harmful statements perceived by the employee to be false and defamatory. In most cases, however, even if the performance review contains a false statement, no defamation claim will lie because (1) statements of opinion are not actionable under Virginia law (or the United States Constitution); and (2) communications between people on a subject in which they both have an “interest or duty” are deemed privileged.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently considered–and rejected–the defamation claims of Claudine Nigro, a former medical resident at the Shenandoah Valley Family Residency Program. After a semiannual performance review in 2009, Nigro was notified that she would not be renewed for another year of residency with the program. Nigro appealed this decision, but then resigned a few months later. She brought an action against the residency program’s director and the hospital itself, claiming that she was defamed during the appeals process by the director of the program, who discussed her perceived shortcomings with the faculty appeals committee, and by employees of the hospital, who reported Nigro for allegedly recording her conversations with physicians.

Nigro alleged the Program Director defamed her with statements he made in various meetings and notices, including “There has been no evidence of improvement or intention to improve in weak areas,” “There is no change in apathetic/disinterested approach or demonstrated interest in learning despite 3-4 months of discussion and coaching,” and “There is faculty consensus that [Nigro] may be suffering from depression or poor career choice.” The court found that all the alleged statements were either opinion, factually true, not defamatory, or were protected by the qualified privilege applicable to statements made to another with a corresponding interest or duty.

June 29, 2012

Breach of Non-Disparagement Agreement Leads to Defamation Claim

by Lee E. Berlik

The United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia has found that negative comments a customer service representative made to a customer may form the basis of a defamation action.

Charles and Donna Bates operate a school photography business. They entered a contract with Strawbridge Studios, Inc., also a school photography business, under which Strawbridge purchased the Bates’ accounts and employed them to handle certain accounts. The relationship deteriorated and ended in the Bates filing a breach of contract action again Strawbridge. The parties resolved their dispute and entered a settlement agreement which included a non-disparagement clause providing that neither party would “say, write, publish, broadcast, or in any other way participate in negative or disparaging comments about the other.”

Later, when a customer called Strawbridge looking for a photograph she believed the Bates had taken, Strawbridge’s customer service representative told the customer that the Bates were “not reputable” and “could not be trusted.” The representative also stated that “things got so bad” that Strawbridge “had to get involved in a lawsuit.” The Bates filed a second suit against Strawbridge and included a claim for defamation.

June 11, 2012

Virginia Law Firm’s Defamation Claim Dismissed As Opinion

by Lee E. Berlik

When several law firm clients were vocally unhappy about the firm’s work product and billing practices, and expressed their views to a Virginia legal newspaper, the firm slapped them with a defamation suit in Richmond federal court. However, finding the allegedly defamatory statements to be subjective statements of opinion, the court dismissed the claim.

The Virginia law firm of Cook, Heyward, Lee, Hopper & Feehan, P.C. (“Cook Heyward”) entered into a contract for legal services with Trump Virginia Acquisitions LLC, Trump Vineyard Estates, LLC, and The Trump Organization, Inc. Cook Heyward provided the Trump Entities with invoices itemizing fees and costs over the course of the representation. The Trump Entities requested Cook Heyward to reformat the invoice but did not object to the amount billed, and they continued to request legal services from Cook Heyward.

After a second updated invoice, the Trump Entities indicated that they had no problem with the quality of the legal work, but thought the bills were “too high” and suggested Cook Heyward reduce its fees by approximately seventy percent. Cook Heyward informed the Trump Entities that they intended to file a motion to withdraw as counsel. The Trump Entities asked Cook Heyward to reconsider, then informed them that they “should expect very bad publicity” regarding their withdrawal as counsel. After repeated requests for payment, Cook Heyward filed a motion to withdraw which the court granted.

May 17, 2012

Defamation Claims Asserted by Church Against Former Members

by Lee E. Berlik

Julie Anne Smith and her family attended Beaverton Grace Bible Church for over two years. When the church dismissed one of its employees for “subversive conduct,” the Smith family sought meetings with the Pastor and Elders to discuss the situation because they felt the termination was handled poorly. During the meetings, the Smiths and church officials discussed church policies and governance. Later, an elder informed Mrs. Smith that she must “recant” or her entire family would no longer be welcome at the church. The Smiths stopped attending the church.

Mrs. Smith later learned that Oregon authorities were investigating allegations of child molestation by a teenage member of the church whom she had seen in the child care area. The Pastor and Elders came unannounced to the Smith home demanding to know whether the Smiths knew who had reported the abuse. The Pastor informed the Smiths that they were “excommunicated.”

Mrs. Smith began posting comments about the church under Google’s “reviews” of the church. Congregants, former congregants, and the Pastor also posted comments, and the dialogue about church governance and doctrine continued. The Pastor removed many postings, so Mrs. Smith began her own blog, Beaverton Grace Bible Church Survivors, where she continued making and encouraging comments.