California Court of Appeal

In a pediatric dentist's suit against defendants, husband and wife, and the Web site Yelp.com, based on allegedly false assertions contained in a review posted on Yelp that criticized the dental services the plaintiff had provided to the couple's son, trial court's denial of defendants' anti-SLAPP motion to strike plaintiff's claims is reversed where: 1) the review was not just a highly critical opinion of plaintiff's performance on particular occasions, but it was also part of a public discussion and dissemination of information on issues of public interest; 2) there is no evidence, admissible or otherwise, suggesting that the wife had anything to do with the review and its posting; and 3) although the trial court properly denied the anti-SLAPP motion as it applied to the libel claim, plaintiff failed to make a prima facie showing of probable success on her action for intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress because the evidence of her response to the posting does not constitute "severe" or "serious" emotional distress.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/09/2010
• Published 11/09/2010

Judges

• RUSHING

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Mark Goldowitz, Marc L. Terbeek