B.C. man ordered to pay damages for defamatory Google review

A B.C. man has been ordered to pay a total of $4,000 to a Coquitlam company and its two owners because of a negative review he posted on Google.

Hyungdong Lee worked in an office adjacent to the Coquitlam headquarters of Pacific Granite Manufacturing Ltd., according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision issued last week and published online Tuesday. 

In September 2021, Lee's vehicle was damaged in a hit-and-run crash. The vehicle that hit his was a white Chevrolet Impala that belonged to a Pacific Granite employee, identified in the court decision as a "Mr. Kennedy."

Lee determined that the offending vehicle belonged to a Pacific Granite employee and had a discussion with one of the company's owners – Nader Tabrizi – about the crash that he found unsatisfactory. The two parties differ in their accounts of exactly what was said, as described in the decision.

Tabrizi testified that he told Lee the Impala belonged to a Pacific Granite employee, but was not used for work purposes, and suggested that Lee come back at the end of the day if he wanted to speak with the vehicle's owner.

Lee pleaded that when he met with a representative of Pacific Granite, that person denied that an employee of the company had been involved in the hit-and-run.

Ultimately, Lee wrote a Google review in which he recounted his experience with the hit-and-run. As reproduced in the court decision, the review began by urging readers to "please never do business with this place."

After explaining his version of events, Lee concluded the review by writing: "We have successfully completed the report to RCMP and ICBC. But the boss and the staff here lied to the end."

Pacific Granite and Tabrizi, along with his co-owner Alireza Beittoei, sued Lee for defamation, arguing that the contents of the review – along with subsequent revisions Lee made to it – "meant or implied that Pacific Granite and its management and employees could not be trusted and conducted their business in a shameful, dishonourable, dishonest, unlawful and criminal manner."

The plaintiffs sought general, aggravated and punitive damages totalling $105,000, as well as an injunction preventing Lee from making any further posts about the hit-and-run or Pacific Granite's lawsuit against him.

While B.C. Supreme Court Justice Andrew P. A. Mayer agreed that one specific line of the review was defamatory, he declined to award them the full damages or the injunction that they sought.

Lawyer letters

Lee filed a response to the lawsuit against him, but he did not participate in the trial, according to Mayer's decision.

Though the review was posted in October 2021, Pacific Granite told the court it became aware of the review in March 2022. Shortly thereafter, the company's lawyer contacted Lee to demand that he remove the review and post an apology.

Lee removed all but one line of the review, which read: "it’s a shame that people and employees like you work close to our company," according to the court decision.

The revised review did not include an apology and still included the photographs that had been included with the initial review. When Pacific Granite's lawyer wrote again acknowledging the revision and re-demanding an apology and the removal of the photos, the decision notes, Lee revised the review again.

He still didn't post an apology, and he didn't remove the photos, according to the decision. Instead, his new review began: "I will be sued by this company," and went on to restate his version of events, though notably without the line saying that the company and its employees had lied.

The plaintiffs argued that all three reviews, whether looked at individually or collectively, constituted defamation, meaning they would lower the plaintiffs' reputations in the eyes of a reasonable person.

Mayer concluded that the initial review and each revision should be considered individually, since the three iterations of the review were not all visible at the same time and did not refer to each other.

Looking at the evidence that way, Mayer found only the initial review to contain any defamatory content.

"I find the publication of the words 'but the boss and the staff here lied to the end' to be literally defamatory," Mayer's decision reads.

"They accuse the management and staff of Pacific Granite, on whose Google.com page the review was posted, of being liars. As well, in the context of the Google review, which concerned the alleged hit and run of Mr. Lee’s vehicle, a reasonable reader may infer that management and staff of Pacific Granite lied about this incident."

The plaintiffs' other arguments – that Lee's phrase "it's a shame" suggested shameful conduct by Pacific Granite and its employees; and that his inclusion of a photo of an RCMP vehicle implied Pacific Granite was under criminal investigation – failed to persuade Mayer that the revised reviews were defamatory.

Damages

Lee's defamatory statement was "serious," according to the decision, but that seriousness was mitigated somewhat by context.

"This is not a situation in which Mr. Lee’s comments were directed at the truthfulness of the way that Mr. Tabrizi or Mr. Beittoei conducted the business of Pacific Granite," Mayer's decision reads.

"Read in context, this publication makes a general allegation that the one of the bosses of Pacific Granite had lied concerning the circumstances of the collision between Mr. Kennedy’s white Impala and Mr. Lee’s vehicle. In my view this somewhat reduces the impact of the defamatory sting on Pacific Granite."

Similarly, Mayer found the "defamatory sting" of the comment against Tabrizi and Beittoei was reduced by the fact that neither man was named in the review. Readers would have to know that Tabrizi and Beittoei were the "bosses" at Pacific Granite to have their opinion of the men diminished by the defamatory statement.

While the plaintiffs sought a total of $70,000 in general damages, the judge concluded a much smaller award was appropriate, given the mitigating factors in the case.

"There is no evidence establishing that the Google review resulted in any significant or ongoing distress to either Mr. Tabrizi or Mr. Beittoei," the decision reads.

"As well, there is no evidence establishing a negative impact on the business reputations of any of the plaintiffs. Evidence was not called from customers, suppliers or staff with respect to the impact of the defamatory comment on their business reputations. Accordingly, in this case a general damages award is more in the nature of a prophylactic than compensatory remedy. The primary goal is to deter Mr. Lee and others who might make similar posts in the future from doing so."

Mayer ordered Lee to pay $2,000 to Tabrizi and $1,000 each to Beittoei and the company itself. The judge reasoned that Tabrizi was "the public face of the company" and therefore felt the defamatory sting of the review most seriously.

The judge declined to award aggravated or punitive damages, and found there was "no basis" for ordering an injunction against Lee.

"There is no indication in this case that Mr. Lee has published anything, let alone defamatory comments, concerning the plaintiffs since, at the latest, March of 2022," the decision concludes. "Nor is there any indication that he will do so after this judgment is released."