{"id":20790,"date":"2015-04-16T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/victory-virginia-supreme-court-says-yelp-need-not-identify-commenters-subpoena-was-pursued-in-the-wrong-state\/"},"modified":"2015-04-16T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T04:00:00","slug":"victory-virginia-supreme-court-says-yelp-need-not-identify-commenters-subpoena-was-pursued-in-the-wrong-state","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/victory-virginia-supreme-court-says-yelp-need-not-identify-commenters-subpoena-was-pursued-in-the-wrong-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory: Virginia Supreme Court Says Yelp Need Not Identify Commenters, Subpoena Was Pursued in the Wrong State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>April 16, 2015<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><b>Victory: Virginia Supreme Court Says Yelp Need Not Identify Commenters, Subpoena Was Pursued in the Wrong State<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12px;\"><b><i>Case Stemmed From Negative Online Reviews of Carpet Cleaning Service; Decision Doesn\u2019t Address First Amendment Question<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Note: To talk with some of the anonymous online reviewers in the <\/i>Yelp, Inc. v. Hadeed Carpet Cleaning<i> case, please contact their attorney, Matt Kelley, at (202) 508-1112.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Consumers and honest businesses achieved a victory today when the Virginia Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/our-work\/litigation\/cases\/hadeed-v-john-does-yelp-v-hadeed\">ruled that Yelp doesn\u2019t have to identify online critics<\/a> of a carpet cleaning service. Saying the subpoena had been pursued in the wrong state, the court reversed a subpoena that ordered Yelp to identify seven authors of negative online reviews criticizing Hadeed Carpet Cleaners.<\/p>\n<p>On July 2, 2012, Hadeed sued seven Yelp reviewers after receiving critical reviews, and on July 3, Hadeed subpoenaed documents from Yelp that would identify the authors. Yelp objected, saying that the First Amendment protects its users from being identified unless certain requirements are met. Yelp also argued that the subpoena was issued in the wrong state; its main office and relevant records are in California, not Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>Today, because the case wasn\u2019t filed in California, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed an appellate court\u2019s decision upholding the subpoena.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough we were hoping the court would rule on both jurisdictional and First Amendment grounds, this is still an important win,\u201d said Paul Alan Levy, the Public Citizen attorney representing Yelp. \u201cIf Hadeed turns to California courts to learn the identities of its critics, those courts will require it to show evidence to meet the well-accepted First Amendment test for identifying anonymous speakers. And so far, Hadeed has not come close to providing such evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the case began in 2012, Hadeed Carpet Cleaning sued the seven Yelp reviewers over allegations that their posts were false and defamatory because it claimed that it could not be sure the reviewers were customers. But Hadeed did not deny the substance of the posts \u2013 namely that it sometimes charges twice the advertised price or charges for work not performed. Hadeed has had the opportunity to show evidence for denying one or more of the seven Does of their First Amendment right to speak anonymously, but has not done so.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConsumers should have the right to criticize anonymously online so long as they don\u2019t lie about their experiences, and there has been no evidence to show that this has been the case,\u201d said Levy. \u201cWe will look for other Virginia cases through which to establish the procedures for protecting the First Amendment right of online reviewers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Local counsel is Raymond Battocchi of McLean, Virginia.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/sites\/default\/files\/yelp-v-hadeed-virginia-supreme-court-opinion_0.pdf\">Read the court\u2019s opinion (PDF).<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/our-work\/litigation\/cases\/hadeed-v-john-does-yelp-v-hadeed\">View more information about the case.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-20790","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","tax_news-press"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Victory: Virginia Supreme Court Says Yelp Need Not Identify Commenters, Subpoena Was Pursued in the Wrong State - Public Citizen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/victory-virginia-supreme-court-says-yelp-need-not-identify-commenters-subpoena-was-pursued-in-the-wrong-state\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Victory: Virginia Supreme Court Says Yelp Need Not Identify Commenters, Subpoena Was Pursued in the Wrong State - Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Case Stemmed From Negative Online Reviews of Carpet Cleaning Service; 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