Hassell v. Bird was a case heard within the California court system related to a court-ordered removal of a defamatory user review of a law firm from the Yelp website. The case, first heard in the California Court of Appeals, First District, Division Four, unanimously ruled in favor of the law firm, forcing Yelp to remove the review in 2016. Yelp refused to remove the review and appealed the decision. In July 2018, the California Supreme Court reversed the order in a closely divided 4-3 decision, stating that Yelp's position fell within Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a publisher of user material, and was not required to comply with the trial court's removal order. However, the part of the trial court's decision that ordered the reviewer to remove the defamatory review and pay a monetary judgement were left intact.
Video Hassell v. Bird
Background
In the summer of 2012, San Francisco attorney Dawn Hassell took on client Ava Bird over an injury claim. Hassell represented Bird for 25 days, and Bird signed an attorney-client fee agreement on August 20. However, Hassell withdrew from Bird's case on September 23, 2012, stating that she was having communication issues with Bird, and that Bird had expressed dissatisfaction with Hassell's work.
Bird published her first review of Hassell's firm on Yelp.com in January 2013, under the name "Birdzeye B. Los Angeles, CA." She rated her experience with Hassell as one out of five stars, claiming that Hassell's firm neglected to contact her insurance company or maintain communication with Bird herself--even though Hassell notified Bird via email about at least two correspondences with Allstate Insurance Company. Upon seeing these reviews, Hassell reached out to Bird, requesting that she remove the "factual inaccuracies and defamatory remarks" from the website. Bird refused.
Another negative one-star review of Hassell's firm appeared in February 2013. This review was written under a different name: "J.D. Alameda, C.A." Although Hassell had never represented a client with the initials J.D., she suspected Bird wrote this review because of its similarities in writing style with the January 2013 review. The review by "J.D." reads as follows:
"Did not like the fact that they charged me their client to make COPIES, send out FAXES, POSTAGE, AND FOR MAKING PHONE CALLS about my case!!! Isn't that your job. That's just ridiculous!!! They Deducted all those expenses out of my settlement."
Hassell filed a complaint against Bird on April 17, 2013, claiming that Bird's negative reviews were defamatory and injurious to Hassell's business reputation. When Bird failed to appear in court, Hassell filed a request to the Court of Appeal for the State of California to have Bird delete her reviews.
On April 29, 2013, Bird--under the "Birdzeye" username--posted another Yelp review in response to her first review in January and addressing Hassell's lawsuit. She claimed that Hassell's legal action aimed to "threaten, bully, intimidate, [and] harass me into removing the review."
Maps Hassell v. Bird
Lower court ruling
On January 14, 2014, a default prove-up hearing was held before the Honorable Donald Sullivan. Bird was not present. Ultimately, Hassell was awarded $557,918.75 in general and special damages, but was denied punitive damages.
The court also gave an injunction ordering Ava Bird to remove all defamatory Yelp reviews published about Hassell Law Group, and urging her to refrain from posting online any "written reviews, commentary, or descriptions" of Hassell or Hassell Law Group. Additionally, Yelp.com was ordered to remove all of Bird's reviews within 7 days of the court's order.
The courts cited the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C § 230, which offers protection for the blocking and screening of offensive material. Though it states that websites cannot be held accountable as the publisher or speaker of third party user-posted content, the Court of Appeal claimed that the injunction does not violate section 230, because it did not impose any liability on Yelp as a publisher of third party content, because it only ordered Yelp to remove those specific reviews covered by the injunction.
This judgment was finalized on March 16, 2014. However, since Yelp was not a party to Hassell's original lawsuit against Bird, and therefore was unable to challenge the courts' injunction, Yelp appealed to the Supreme Court of California on May 23, 2014, to set aside the judgment. The website claimed its status as an "aggrieved party," arguing that their right to due process was violated because Hassell had not identified Yelp as a party defendant, and that Bird's First Amendment rights were violated because Hassell had not adequately proved that Bird's comments were defamatory.
The Supreme Court of California agreed to consider the lawsuit on September 21, 2016.
Issues before the court
The application of the Communications Decency Act by the Appeals court raised concerns throughout the Internet community due to its potential impact on republishers, sites that host user-content but otherwise do not regulate it. A petition for review to the Supreme Court of California was filed on July 18, 2016, arguing that while Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act defines the user of a computer service or website as the "publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider," the lower court's ruling was wrongly holding Yelp.com accountable for Bird's speech based on Yelp's online publication of her content.
The Appeals court decision had effects on other online communities after its issuing. Glassdoor.com, a website similar to Yelp that allows users to anonymously rate and review their employers, claimed in an amicus brief that since Hassell was published, they began receiving more demand letters from users to remove unfavorable reviews. Airbnb, another Internet-based business that depends on third party user-posted reviews, also petitioned the California Supreme Court for review, arguing that the opinion in Hassell would effectively weaken the legal protections granted to websites in the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, by holding websites accountable for third party user-posted content.
The case was argued before the California Supreme Court on April 3. At least one reviewer thought Yelp got the worst of it. The California Supreme Court issued its decision on July 2, 2018, partially reversing the lower court's decision to vacate the order on Yelp to remove the review. The court found that the lower court had employed too narrow a ruling on the Communication Decency Act in judging Yelp's participating in the case. The court wrote that if it had upheld the lower court's order on Yelp, it would have created a means to legally bind republishers for content they did not create. They wrote that this would "interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform" and "the unique position of internet intermediaries convinced Congress to spare republishers of online content ... from this sort of ongoing entanglement with the courts." The California Supreme Court still maintained the order that Bird must remove the review themselves from Yelp and pay a fine.
References
External links
- Text of Hassell v. Bird, 247 Cal.App.4th 1336, is available from: Justia
- Amicus letters for Hassell v. Bird are available at: Santa Clara Law Digital Commons
- Hassell v. Bird, status at the California Supreme Court
Source of article : Wikipedia
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