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Sue the Opinions Off 'Em
If a food critic’s negative review causes a restaurant to lose money, should he be held financially liable? An Australian court thinks so. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, the state High Court in New South Wales ruled that low marks from one of the paper’s restaurant writers constituted defamation. This case was already on appeal, and now it will continue on to the state Supreme Court to determine whether the critic will actually have to shell out for damages, and how much those will be.
Hounds discussed the issue of suits against food reviewers back in February and March, after a writer lost a similar case in an Irish court, and the Herald story mentions one previous successful anticritic suit in Australia. In the English-speaking world, it seems that the only country to let restaurant reviewers say whatever they want is the United States (even though I’ve read plenty of mean-as-hell reviews in British publications). As this scholarly study explains (link opens a PDF file), in the U.S. “it is almost impossible for a restaurant owner to prevail in a defamation suit” because food reviews deal in opinions rather than facts.
But these days, when at least one prominent restaurateur takes negative reviews seriously enough to place a full-page ad in the paper to rebut a critic’s claims, you gotta wonder how long it will be until some smart lawyer brings a winning case against a food reviewer. Or against a website that allows nonprofessional reviewers to trade opinions, for that matter (ahem). It seems that there’s more money in restaurants now than ever before, so there’s probably also more interest in protecting reputations.
Posted by | Monday, June 18, 2007 at 7:31am | 2 comments
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I agree this is not an issue in the United States. The article linked to is right on the money. Summarizing... Defamation requires a false statement, not a mean one. There's no such thing as a false opinion. Moreover, defamation in a public-interest case, such as over a restaurant review, requires actual malice: The reviewer must intentionally or recklessly make false statements of fact about a restaurant. Burden is on the plaintiff to show such malice.
How the chef / restaurant handles a review can influence our choices. A couple of years ago a local paper's reviewer (notorious for spicy preferences) harped on a restaurant's lack of salt in all of the dishes. The restaurant sent a livestock salt block to the reviewer and a polite, but tongue in cheek letter to the paper. We laughed and went there that week. (And found a place we could rely on for good food and service) Unless the reviewer is deliberately lying about sanitation or claims fraud; let your work prove them wrong.