Matter of Woodbridge Structured Funding, LLC v. Pissed Consumer & PissedConsumer.com

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

Matter of Woodbridge Structured Funding, LLC v. Pissed Consumer & PissedConsumer.com

125 A.D.3d 508, 6 N.Y.S.3d 2

CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

DecidedFebruary 19, 2015

Docket14262 100336/13

StatusPublished

Cited by10 cases

This text of 125 A.D.3d 508 (Matter of Woodbridge Structured Funding, LLC v. Pissed Consumer & PissedConsumer.com) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Matter of Woodbridge Structured Funding, LLC v. Pissed Consumer & PissedConsumer.com, 125 A.D.3d 508, 6 N.Y.S.3d 2 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2015).

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Opinion

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol E. Huff, J.), entered October 8, 2013, which denied the petition pursuant to CPLR 3102 (c) to compel respondents to disclose the identity of the person or persons who posted alleged defamatory statements on respondent’s weblog or blog, and dismissed the petition, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Petitioner, a private finance/structured settlement business, seeks pre-action discovery of the identity of anonymous speakers) who posted negative comments on respondents’ website, “PissedConsumer.com,” regarding petitioner’s alleged failure to fulfill an advertising promise to award prospective customers with a $500 gas card that included statements such as petitioner “Lie[s] To Their Clients” and “will forget about you and ... all the promises they made to you” once “you sign on the dotted line.” The motion was properly denied since petitioner failed to demonstrate that it has a meritorious cause of action as required to obtain pre-action discovery (see CPLR 3102 [c]; Sandals Resorts Intl. Ltd. v Google, Inc., 86 AD3d 32, 38 [1st Dept 2011]). Nothing in the petition identifies specific *509 facts that are false and when the statements complained of are viewed in context, they suggest to a reasonable reader that the writer was a dissatisfied customer who utilized respondent’s consumers’ grievance website to express an opinion. Although some of the statements are based on undisclosed, unfavorable facts known to the writer, the disgruntled tone, anonymous posting, and predominant use of statements that cannot be definitively proven true or false, supports the finding that the challenged statements are only susceptible of a nondefamatory meaning, grounded in opinion (see Sandals Resorts Intl. Ltd., 86 AD3d at 43-45). Petitioner also has inadequately asserted the damage element of a defamation claim, inasmuch as it has not alleged facts that would indicate injury to its business reputation from the postings (see id. at 39; see also Liberman v Gelstein, 80 NY2d 429, 436 [1992]).

Concur — Tom, J.P., Saxe, Manzanet-Daniels, Gische and Clark, JJ.

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Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol E. Huff, J.), entered October 8, 2013, which denied the petition pursuant to CPLR 3102 (c) to compel respondents to disclose the identity of the person or persons who posted alleged defamatory statements on respondent’s weblog or blog, and dismissed the petition, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Petitioner, a private finance/structured settlement business, seeks pre-action discovery of the identity of anonymous speakers) who posted negative comments on respondents’ website, “PissedConsumer.com,” regarding petitioner’s alleged failure to fulfill an advertising promise to award prospective customers with a $500 gas card that included statements such as petitioner “Lie[s] To Their Clients” and “will forget about you and ... all the promises they made to you” once “you sign on the dotted line.” The motion was properly denied since petitioner failed to demonstrate that it has a meritorious cause of action as required to obtain pre-action discovery (see CPLR 3102 [c]; Sandals Resorts Intl. Ltd. v Google, Inc., 86 AD3d 32, 38 [1st Dept 2011]). Nothing in the petition identifies specific *509 facts that are false and when the statements complained of are viewed in context, they suggest to a reasonable reader that the writer was a dissatisfied customer who utilized respondent’s consumers’ grievance website to express an opinion. Although some of the statements are based on undisclosed, unfavorable facts known to the writer, the disgruntled tone, anonymous posting, and predominant use of statements that cannot be definitively proven true or false, supports the finding that the challenged statements are only susceptible of a nondefamatory meaning, grounded in opinion (see Sandals Resorts Intl. Ltd., 86 AD3d at 43-45). Petitioner also has inadequately asserted the damage element of a defamation claim, inasmuch as it has not alleged facts that would indicate injury to its business reputation from the postings (see id. at 39; see also Liberman v Gelstein, 80 NY2d 429, 436 [1992]).

Concur — Tom, J.P., Saxe, Manzanet-Daniels, Gische and Clark, JJ.

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Bluebook (online)

125 A.D.3d 508, 6 N.Y.S.3d 2, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/matter-of-woodbridge-structured-funding-llc-v-pissed-consumer-nyappdiv-2015.

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