A defamation suit filed by Footprints Floors (Centennial, Colo.) against a client who wrote a negative review on Yelp was recently settled out of court for $15,000.
In the lawsuit, according to Fox31 Denver, Footprints Floors claimed the Yelp review posted in 2013 cost the company more than 150 projects and $625,000 in revenue between Jan. 1 and Aug. 1, 2014.
Footprints Floors President Bryan Park declined to be interviewed by Fox 31, but did provide a written statement:
“We recently had an experience that I hope to never go through again. One of our customers expressed dissatisfaction with our work. We offered to fix all of the problems. I personally did everything I could to meet his needs. He still wasn’t satisfied and made online comments that, in our view, were not true. After a drawn-out legal process, the case was settled last month when this client ultimately paid us for the floor we installed. This attack hurt our business’s bottom line, yes, but more importantly, it hurt our reputation. We take our reputation, both on and offline, very seriously because we know it is what has allowed us to succeed. This was one project—that we wanted to make right—in the thousands of projects we’ve completed. We have thousands of happy clients, and we strive to keep them happy for however long they have our floors. This particular client’s online comments were not representative of our work.”
The lawsuit cost the client, Matt White, $65,000 in legal fees, according to Fox 31. His fiancée, Amanda Jameer, said Footprint Floors was attacking the couple’s free speech.
Parts of White’s review, now deleted, were excerpted by Fox 31: “Absolutely horrible experience. … I have 4,000 square feet of sandpaper on the floor and Footprints believes there is nothing wrong. I have shoe prints in the stain, dust, debris and filler trapped under my stain. … The quality of the work is absolutely deplorable.”
