A B.C. man has been ordered to pay a complete of $4,000 to a Coquitlam firm and its two homeowners due to a destructive assessment he posted on Google.
Hyungdong Lee labored in an workplace adjoining to the Coquitlam headquarters of Pacific Granite Manufacturing Ltd., in response to a B.C. Supreme Courtroom choice issued final week and revealed on-line Tuesday.
In September 2021, Lee’s automobile was broken in a hit-and-run crash. The automobile that hit his was a white Chevrolet Impala that belonged to a Pacific Granite worker, recognized within the courtroom choice as a “Mr. Kennedy.”
Lee decided that the offending automobile belonged to a Pacific Granite worker and had a dialogue with one of many firm’s homeowners – Nader Tabrizi – concerning the crash that he discovered unsatisfactory. The 2 events differ of their accounts of precisely what was stated, as described within the choice.
Tabrizi testified that he informed Lee the Impala belonged to a Pacific Granite worker, however was not used for work functions, and urged that Lee come again on the finish of the day if he needed to talk with the automobile’s proprietor.
Lee pleaded that when he met with a consultant of Pacific Granite, that particular person denied that an worker of the corporate had been concerned within the hit-and-run.
Finally, Lee wrote a Google assessment during which he recounted his expertise with the hit-and-run. As reproduced within the courtroom choice, the assessment started by urging readers to “please by no means do enterprise with this place.”
After explaining his model of occasions, Lee concluded the assessment by writing: “We’ve efficiently accomplished the report back to RCMP and ICBC. However the boss and the employees right here lied to the top.”
Pacific Granite and Tabrizi, alongside along with his co-owner Alireza Beittoei, sued Lee for defamation, arguing that the contents of the assessment – together with subsequent revisions Lee made to it – “meant or implied that Pacific Granite and its administration and workers couldn’t be trusted and performed their enterprise in a shameful, dishonourable, dishonest, illegal and felony method.”
The plaintiffs sought common, aggravated and punitive damages totalling $105,000, in addition to an injunction stopping Lee from making any additional posts concerning the hit-and-run or Pacific Granite’s lawsuit in opposition to him.
Whereas B.C. Supreme Courtroom Justice Andrew P. A. Mayer agreed that one particular line of the assessment was defamatory, he declined to award them the total damages or the injunction that they sought.
Lawyer letters
Lawyer letters
Lee filed a response to the lawsuit in opposition to him, however he didn’t take part within the trial, in response to Mayer’s choice.
Although the assessment was posted in October 2021, Pacific Granite informed the courtroom it turned conscious of the assessment in March 2022. Shortly thereafter, the corporate’s lawyer contacted Lee to demand that he take away the assessment and publish an apology.
Lee eliminated all however one line of the assessment, which learn: “it’s a disgrace that folks and workers such as you work near our firm,” in response to the courtroom choice.
The revised assessment didn’t embody an apology and nonetheless included the pictures that had been included with the preliminary assessment. When Pacific Granite’s lawyer wrote once more acknowledging the revision and re-demanding an apology and the elimination of the pictures, the choice notes, Lee revised the assessment once more.
He nonetheless did not publish an apology, and he did not take away the pictures, in response to the choice. As an alternative, his new assessment started: “I will likely be sued by this firm,” and went on to restate his model of occasions, although notably with out the road saying that the corporate and its workers had lied.
The plaintiffs argued that every one three opinions, whether or not checked out individually or collectively, constituted defamation, that means they’d decrease the plaintiffs’ reputations within the eyes of an inexpensive particular person.
Mayer concluded that the preliminary assessment and every revision needs to be thought of individually, for the reason that three iterations of the assessment weren’t all seen on the identical time and didn’t refer to one another.
Trying on the proof that means, Mayer discovered solely the preliminary assessment to comprise any defamatory content material.
“I discover the publication of the phrases ‘however the boss and the employees right here lied to the top’ to be actually defamatory,” Mayer’s choice reads.
“They accuse the administration and employees of Pacific Granite, on whose Google.com web page the assessment was posted, of being liars. As nicely, within the context of the Google assessment, which involved the alleged hit and run of Mr. Lee’s automobile, an inexpensive reader could infer that administration and employees of Pacific Granite lied about this incident.”
The plaintiffs’ different arguments – that Lee’s phrase “it is a disgrace” urged shameful conduct by Pacific Granite and its workers; and that his inclusion of a photograph of an RCMP automobile implied Pacific Granite was below felony investigation – failed to influence Mayer that the revised opinions had been defamatory.
Damages
Damages
Lee’s defamatory assertion was “severe,” in response to the choice, however that seriousness was mitigated considerably by context.
“This isn’t a scenario during which Mr. Lee’s feedback had been directed on the truthfulness of the way in which that Mr. Tabrizi or Mr. Beittoei performed the enterprise of Pacific Granite,” Mayer’s choice reads.
“Learn in context, this publication makes a common allegation that the one of many bosses of Pacific Granite had lied in regards to the circumstances of the collision between Mr. Kennedy’s white Impala and Mr. Lee’s automobile. For my part this considerably reduces the affect of the defamatory sting on Pacific Granite.”
Equally, Mayer discovered the “defamatory sting” of the remark in opposition to Tabrizi and Beittoei was diminished by the truth that neither man was named within the assessment. Readers must know that Tabrizi and Beittoei had been the “bosses” at Pacific Granite to have their opinion of the lads diminished by the defamatory assertion.
Whereas the plaintiffs sought a complete of $70,000 on the whole damages, the choose concluded a a lot smaller award was acceptable, given the mitigating components within the case.
“There is no such thing as a proof establishing that the Google assessment resulted in any important or ongoing misery to both Mr. Tabrizi or Mr. Beittoei,” the choice reads.
“As nicely, there isn’t any proof establishing a destructive affect on the enterprise reputations of any of the plaintiffs. Proof was not known as from clients, suppliers or employees with respect to the affect of the defamatory touch upon their enterprise reputations. Accordingly, on this case a common damages award is extra within the nature of a prophylactic than compensatory treatment. The first aim is to discourage Mr. Lee and others who would possibly make comparable posts sooner or later from doing so.”
Mayer ordered Lee to pay $2,000 to Tabrizi and $1,000 every to Beittoei and the corporate itself. The choose reasoned that Tabrizi was “the general public face of the corporate” and subsequently felt the defamatory sting of the assessment most severely.
The choose declined to award aggravated or punitive damages, and located there was “no foundation” for ordering an injunction in opposition to Lee.
“There is no such thing as a indication on this case that Mr. Lee has revealed something, not to mention defamatory feedback, in regards to the plaintiffs since, on the newest, March of 2022,” the choice concludes. “Neither is there any indication that he’ll accomplish that after this judgment is launched.”
