Bad Idea: Threatening Public Citizen's Paul Levy For Asking You About Your Bogus Defamation Lawsuit
from the just-saying dept
Paul Levy (disclaimer: has represented us in the past) over at Public Citizen has a blog post up concerning yet another questionable lawsuit from a company, in this case, ToyoMotors, against some people who wrote negative reviews on Yelp. These kinds of questionable lawsuits are all too common. As Levy notes, the main target of the lawsuit, Jennifer Choi, made statements that didn't appear all that different from complaints from other consumer about ToyoMotors, and some of the statements that ToyoMotors claims are defamatory clearly would fall into protected statements of hyperbole. But all of that is kind of meaningless because of the major flaw in the lawsuit: the comments were made in 2009. The lawsuit was filed in 2013. The statute of limitations on defamation in Arizona is one year from publication. Do the math.Even more ridiculous, is that when Paul Levy called up ToyoMotors' lawyer, Robert Lewis, Lewis responded to Levy in a manner I would suggest is unwise.
I tried to ask ToyoMotors’ counsel, Robert Lewis, about the apparent flaws in his complaint, but when I got him on the telephone he started exclaiming loudly about how he might sue me for defamation (assuming that I might make false statements) or extortion (if my statements were accurate), and threatening to file a bar complaint against me (apparently, for unauthorized practice of law in Arizona). When I followed up with specific emailed questions, he was unwilling to explain why he has any sound basis for proceeding against Choi.In general, this is probably not the best way to respond to a lawyer calling you up to ask some basic questions about a lawsuit you've filed. More specifically, it seems exceptionally preposterous to do that to Paul Levy, recently described in a glowing profile as "the web bully's worst enemy." Either way, Levy is looking for some lawyers in Arizona who might be interested in helping to defend Choi against ToyoMotors' questionable lawsuit.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: jennifer choi, paul levy, robert lewis
Companies: toyomotors, yelp
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Still sleaze, but at least the intentions behind it seem to be legit. Better to act that way on TV than to act that way in court (such as appears to be the case here).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Nope. That doesn't work under Arizona law. They have a single publication law: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/12/00651.htm&Title=12&DocType=ARS That makes it clear that it's the date of *original* publication that matters and that's it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Mr. Levy's article on Public Citizen point out while every time a single publication law has been addressed with regards to the internet it has been upheld, the Arizona law has yet to be addressed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The first year does not actually count toward the "net years" of publication because those years are actually paying back the "production overhead".
The next two years are part of the "distribution overhead".
Then, we do not start the clock on these years because there are five additional years for the "marketing overhead".
Oh, wait, that's Hollywood math.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
They could have figured out who Mr. Levy was and a sane person would have merely answered no comment rather than the childish display they decided on... which motivates getting more attention to their idiocy.
Streisand Powers Activate
Form of a failing business
Shape of a countersuit
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Understanding is too hard
Legal minds chunder
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Ah there's your problem! You are accepting the proposition that this attorney is sane...
ha ha ha silly person!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Let's get Popehat involved, too.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Defendent
Assuming the complain it correct that all of the specified posts were, in fact, made by the same person - how much time must you have on your hands to post on multiple sites with a different alias on each one of them? Really people - if you have a complaint, post the complaint, but let's not get carried away and be obsessive about it.
I am grateful that they pointed out that the owner of this auto shop spends every night in strip clubs.
By the way, why hasn't Toyota sued Toyo Motors yet? Japanese auto makers haven't been Americanized enough yet?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Defendent
It'd be kind of like Fairchild Automotive suing Fair Motors. Just because the surname of your founder has a certain root in it doesn't mean that said root is now banned from use in your industry.
Of course, what makes Toyo somewhat humorous as the name for anything to do with used car sales is the fact that Toyo is the Japanese name for a kind of rice paper used to make brimmed hats, or the name for a person who makes the hats. Equivalent to "Straw for hats" or "straw hat maker" in the US.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This is the basic argument that a website "publishes" information every time it is requested. This specific argument has been tried before (apparently not in Arizona as noted above) and failed.
However, from the perspective of the court, the complaint is about posts published within the past year - and the defendent will have to challenge that reasoning.
To add to that, it is not the responsibility of the court to check the validity of a complant that was filed before the defendent receives it. It is an adversarial system - you need the adversary to challenge something even if it is totally rediculous.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So Levy follows up with an email exchange, and emails probably are admissible as evidence in court. At which point Lewis refuses to say a word in the email.
I find it interesting the way lawyers operate. If you're going to submit evidence of verbal threats to a court. Get the evidence in the form of an email, not a phone call.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Wut
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I dunno what state Paul Levy is in, but in 38 (probably 39) states (including Arizona) either party can record a call without telling the other. There are 11 states where both parties must know.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Without one of the parties stating beforehand, the telephone conversation is about to be recorded. The recorded conversation would fail to meet the one party consent requirement.
Addressing one of the above remarks about a phone threat still being admissible in court, despite no recorded voice evidence to backup that claim. Personal testimony (hearsay) about what supposedly took place, carries no weight without hard evidence to back it up. Hearsay is inadmissible in a court of law.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
One-party consent does not require the other party to be notified; that's the definition of two-party consent. (If you don't consent you're expected to hang up.)
And if the question is "did lawyer A make verbal threats" then the lawyer who heard those threats can absolutely testify that he did. It would be hearsay if, for example, YOU were to testify that the second lawyer claimed to have been threatened. Because you never actually heard the threats. But he did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
I think this is more about surreptitiously recording customers being considered a Bad Thing�.
I know up here in Canuckistan it's one-party consent (your interpretation of this is wrong as pointed out by AC), and we don't do the wacky american criminal code per state/region/neighbourhood, and most customer service lines still have this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yep I'm recording too though for Legal and/or transparency purposes
It's amazing how many governmental bodies, call centres, or whatever get all annoyed, peeved, threaten legal action, etc etc when its done to them!
Also in the State I am in our Surveillance Devices Act ads a caveat that though one party can record for 'legal purposes' (which begs the question what isn't legal since no definitive acts are defined as such) that party needs the permission of the other party to publish it other than to an appropriate authority. Oh and a phone call cannot be 'intercepted' it has to be recorded by an external device (no tapping into the line) - that's the Federal legislation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bar threat
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Recording phone calls
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is standard practice in many law offices to record ALL phone calls, without notice. They may never get used in court, but the attorneys want a recording for reference, and probably for a little coercion if needed. I do not disagree with this practice. Too often people will say "I NEVER said that!". It's handy to present them with the recorded evidence to the contrary.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Without having all of the information in this case, we officially cannot judge whether or not the alias reviews were posted by Jennifer Choi or not. Perhaps plaintiff counsel has proof connecting the dots, I do not know. After careful review I was unable to find all of the aliases listed, possibly because the sites or the user has removed them. However with the ones I did find, I would say the nearly verbatim story coupled with similar grammatical errors are very suspicious at the very least. I also found it interested that the alias review listed on Yelp was not placed in the removed file as is customary, but was completely deleted, I have never seen this before, suspicious again.
With this article Mr. Levy is painted as the Great White Night with a "glowing profile" and with the title of "the Web Bully's Worst Enemy." It appears as though he is in fact actually helping plaintiff counsel by completely nullifying the alleged deficiency and REPUBLISHING Jennifer Choi's story in this article!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Shame on you Paul Levy for making statements about a company without proper knowledge and research. Demandforce does not elicit positive feedback, it simply provides an easy to use platform for reviews no matter the nature. Demandforce adheres strictly to guidelines for reviews as set forth by Google. They actually verify that the client exists and they verify service date with company. They will not delete a negative review unless it breaks google terms of use.
Yelp on the other hand tends to promote negative reviews. Look at the name, Yelp is a what a dog does when it wants attention, or it is has been kicked, maybe its tail is stepped on etc. Even their original logo was that of a dog with it's tail laying across the ground. Yelp will remove a positive reviews of a company where the reviewer has many friends and tons of reviews, while at the same time a person with a single negative review, no "yelp" friends or profile picture will stick like glue.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]