SLO lawyer sues former client over online reviews

From Chris McGuinness at New Times:

"Was your dinner served cold or undercooked? Was the waitress rude? Did the mechanic who fixed your car overcharge you? These days, letting the whole world know about your dissatisfaction with a business is as easy as jumping on a laptop or smartphone and leaving a scathing review.

But can such reviews cross the legal line? A local divorce attorney is alleging exactly that in recently filed lawsuit, claiming that a former client of his took to Internet review sites to defame him.

R. Morgan Holland, a family law and bankruptcy attorney who operates in SLO and Santa Barbara counties, filed a lawsuit July 20 against a former client, Jason Weland, for defamation, civil harassment, and breach of contract. In the lawsuit, Holland alleges that Weland posted multiple “false, misleading, and unsavory” statements about him in reviews on websites such as Yelp, Citysearch, and Superpages. The suit alleges that Weland posted to the websites under his own name, other names, and anonymously more than
100 times.

“If defendants are permitted to continue their actions complained of herin it will produce great waste of [Holland’s] business and irreparable injury to [Holland’s] reputation,” the lawsuit, authored by Holland himself, stated."

Read more from the New Times here.