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California “Yelp” Bill, Guarantees Right to Post (Non-Defamatory) Reviews

California “Yelp” Bill, Guarantees Right to Post (Non-Defamatory) Reviews

Imagine this.

You go to a new dentist and, before she will take you as a patient she requires you to sign an agreement that you won’t post negative reviews of her on the Internet. You go to book a wedding reception at a restaurant and before they will book your reception they ask you to sign a similar document. Even worse, you must agree that if you do post a negative review, you will owe the restaurant a $500 fine.

The Internet has been full of stories of this sort, but now one state — California — has put a stop to it. And, as is sometimes said when it comes to new laws, as California goes, so goes the country.

A bill signed into law in California on September 9, 2014, popularly referred to as the “Yelp” bill, prohibits the use of “non-disparagement” clauses in consumer contracts. The law takes effect on January 1, 2015. 

Under the new law a “contract or proposed contract for the sale or lease of consumer goods or services may not include a provision waiving the consumer’s right to make any statement regarding the seller or lessor or its employees or agents, or concerning the goods or services.” It will also be “unlawful to threaten or to seek to enforce” such a provision, or to “otherwise penalize” a consumer for making any such statement. The law carries statutory penalties ranging from $2,500 for the first offense, up to $10,000 for “willful” violations.

The impact of this law will not be limited to California businesses: it will apply to anyone doing business with consumers in California.

One aspect of this law that is important to understand is that it does not give consumers free license to defame businesses, nor does it limit the right of businesses to sue consumers for defamatory statements. It is limited to using a contract or proposed contract (whether online or on paper) to preclude the publication of reviews — even defamatory reviews — in the first place. If  a review is defamatory, the business owner’s legal rights remain as they were before enactment of this law.

Practice tip: it is possible that the new law will  be viewed as an invitation to class action plaintiffs to seek aggregated statutory damages. Therefore, it is important that companies that do business with consumers in California (whether the business itself is in California or not), review their contracts and online terms and conditions to remove non-disparagement clauses that would violate this law.

The Yelp Bill – Civil Code Section 1670.8

 

Eleventh Circuit Requires a Hearing on Noncompete Where Evidence “Bitterly Disputed”

Now that the Massachusetts legislature has abandoned (at least until next session) a bill to make employer/employee noncompete agreements unenforceable (or more difficult to enforce) in Massachusetts, we’re back to business as usual in Massachusetts, and how the courts handle these cases remains of interest. And, since the preliminary injunction stage of these cases is so critical, how the courts handle preliminary injunction motions in noncompete cases is of particular interest.

Of course, noncompete law (sometimes statutory, sometimes “judge-made” case law) varies from state-to-state. A recent case highlights the extent to which even the procedure for handling these cases can differ from state-to-state.

In Massachusetts, the trial courts — federal or state — have no obligation to hold an evidentiary hearing when resolving a preliminary injunction motion. Affidavits are usually enough, and its rare to see a hearing with witnesses and cross-examination.

However, this is not the case in the 11th Circuit, which covers federal cases in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The 11th Circuit recently held, in a noncompete case involving a preliminary injunction motion, that while an evidentiary hearing is not always required before issuance of a preliminary injunction, ““[w]here the injunction turns on the resolution of bitterly disputed facts … an evidentiary hearing is normally required to decide credibility issues. … where much depends upon the accurate presentation of numerous facts, the trial court erred in not holding an evidentiary hearing to resolve these hotly contested issues.”

The case was remanded to the trial court for a hearing.

Moral of the story: if you think an evidentiary hearing will improve your chances on a noncompete preliminary injunction motion, ask for one. Just maybe, you’ll get it. If the appealing party in this case had not asked for an evidentiary hearing, it would have had no basis for complaining, on appeal, about the failure of the court to grant one, and would not have obtained the reversal. While an Eleventh Circuit decision is only persuasive (not binding) on courts outside the Eleventh Circuit, a particular judge in another state could find it very persuasive, and an evidentiary hearing may make a difference in the outcome in the trial court. It also creates the basis for a good faith argument on appeal.

Moon v. Medical Technology Assoc. (11th Cir. Aug. 18, 2014)

Ninth Circuit Finds Barnes & Noble’s “Browsewrap” Unenforceable

Ninth Circuit Finds Barnes & Noble’s “Browsewrap” Unenforceable

Online companies have often found it challenging to create enforceble terms of service (“TOS”), and the courts aren’t making it any easier. Perhaps the courts have concluded that, now that the Internet is an established commercial medium, they are not going to cut vendors any slack.

The latest decision illustrating this is the Ninth Circuit’s August 18, 2014 holding in Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, holding that Barnes and Noble’s browsewrap agreement was not enforeable.

A website “browsewrap” agreement is where the online terms are posted on a site, typically via a link on the site’s homepage. By contrast, a “clickwrap” clickwraprequires the website user to take some affirmative action before engaging in a transaction (such as an online purchase). Typically this amounts to clicking a box on the site indicating that the user agrees to the site’s terms and conditions.

Where the user is not asked to “check the box” and the website relies on the posting alone, things can get messy. Barnes & Noble tried to impose an arbitration clause on a consumer based on a browsewrap, but the Ninth Circuit held that B&N’s browsewrap was not enforceable. Here, as is often true in these cases, the issue came down to vague factors such as where the terms were presented, and whether “a reasonably prudent user” would be put on notice of the terms. In this case, B&N didn’t do enough:

In light of the lack of controlling authority on point, and in keeping with courts’ traditional reluctance to enforce browsewrap agreements against individual consumers, we therefore hold that where a website makes its terms of use available via a conspicuous hyperlink on every page of the website but otherwise provides no notice to users nor prompts them to take any affirmative action to demonstrate assent, even close proximity of the hyperlink to relevant buttons users must click on—without more—is insufficient to give rise to constructive notice. … the onus must be on website owners to put users on notice of the terms to which they wish to bind consumers. Given the breadth of the range of technological savvy of online purchasers, consumers cannot be expected to ferret out hyperlinks to terms and conditions to which they have no reason to suspect they will be bound.

It is far from clear what constitutes a “conspicuous hyperlink” that would satisfy the test in this decision, but online business should stick with clickwrap agreements, rather than push the envelope with browsewraps. For a similar case that I wrote about in 2012, see Online Agreements – Easy To Get Right, Easy To Get Wrong.

Nguyen v. Barnes Noble (9th Cir. Aug. 18, 2014).

Capitol Records Bares Knuckles in Redigi Suit, Goes After Founders

Capitol Records Bares Knuckles in Redigi Suit, Goes After Founders

It’s a sad reality that when the record companies want to get serious, they sue not only companies that they claim have infringed their copyrights, but the owners of those companies. Capitol Records pursuit of Michael Robertson, despite the bankruptcy of MP3tunes, is a classic example. MP3tunes declared bankruptcy and shuttered its service, but Capitol Records (part of UMG), pursued Robertson individually, and obtained a $41 million verdict against him personally.

Capitol is using the same strategy against Redigi (“the world’s first pre-owned digital marketplace”). I’ve written about Redigi several times (see here, here and here). The last of these, Federal Judge Tells Redigi to Shut it Down, posted April 2, 2013, describes the New York federal court’s decision holding that Redigi’s digital resale business is not protected by the first sale doctrine. In that post I noted that Redigi could face millions of dollars in damages, and that liability might not be limited to the company:

Capitol may seek leave of court to add as defendants the individual owners and employees of Redigi that exercised control over or benefited from the infringement.  While Redigi could oppose such as motion as coming too late in the case, a decision would be at the discretion of the judge. As Capitol Records showed in its copyright suit against MP3tunes and Michael Robertson, Capitol is not above suing not only corporate infringers but their founders and owners. (See: The Record Labels Want My Minivan).* The philosophy of the record companies in many copyright cases may best be described as, “never kick a man when he’s down, unless that’s the only way to keep him there.” Capitol may be preparing to put on its steel toe boots in this case.

… According to the court decision Redigi consulted legal counsel before launching Redigi and engaging the recording industry in a test case. One can only hope that the attorneys Redigi consulted reminded Redigi of the Chinese proverb, “A piece of paper, blown by the wind into a law court, may in the end only be drawn out again by two oxen.”

It didn’t take long for Capitol to follow exactly that strategy. Five months later, on August 13, 2013, Capitol filed an amended complaint naming Redigi’s founding co-owners, John Ossenmacher (CEO) and Larry Rudolph (CTO) as individual defendants. Ossenmacher and Rudoph moved to dismiss, and the court denied their motion on September 2, 2014, holding that the amended complaint –

specifically alleges that the Individual Defendants were responsible both for the technology ReDigi used and for employing that technology through ReDigi’s business. It also alleges that each of ReDigi’s key activities was performed either at the behest of, or with the approval of, the two Individual Defendants. These are precisely the sorts of factual allegations that, if true, make a corporate officer personally liable for copyright infringement. … the rule is that a corporate officer is personally liable for the corporation’s infringement if he had the ability to supervise the activity and a financial interest in it, or if he personally engaged in the infringing activity.

This development just serves to thicken the plot in a case that many observers have been hoping will make it to the Second Circuit on appeal.

Will the judge’s refusal to dismiss Ossenmacher and Rudolph as defendants (albeit only on a motion to dismiss, which is by no means a final decision) now be enough to force Redigi to shut its doors? Would closure of Redigi be enough to settle the claims against the two individuals, or is Capitol out to make an example in this this case?

On the other hand, it’s possible that the founders of Redigi were well-advised before starting this company, and that they put their personal assets beyond the reach of creditors. Redigi made much of the fact that its technology was vetted and approved by a legal team before they released their service. Hopefully, this included a strategy to frustrate Capitol’s attempt to reach their personal assets.

Capitol Records v. Redigi – First Amended Complaint

September 2, 2014 Order Denying Motion to Dismiss Ossenmacher and Rudolph

Ninth Circuit Hands Oracle a Tough Choice in Oracle v. SAP Copyright Ruling

Ninth Circuit Hands Oracle a Tough Choice in Oracle v. SAP Copyright Ruling

Oracle faces a tough call following the Ninth Circuit’s August 29, 2014 decision in Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG. Should Oracle accept the $ 356.7 million in copyright damages the Ninth Circuit authorized on appeal, or roll the dice for a new trial, gambling that it can do better?

I’ve written about this case before (see Oracle and SAP Avoid a Retrial, Go Directly to Appeal, in the Other “Tech Trial of the Century”). As I discussed in that September 2012 post, in 2010 Oracle won a record $1.3 billion copyright infringement jury verdict against SAP.  However, the trial judge held that the jury’s “hypothetical-license” damages award was based on undue speculation, and ordered remittitur, reducing the judgment to $272 million, and giving Oracle the choice of accepting that amount or retrying its damages case. Oracle and SAP then entered into a complex stipulation that allowed the parties to avoid an immediate retrial and permitted Oracle to appeal the district court remittitur order. The terms of the stipulation were as follows:

  • The district court entered final judgment for $272 million. (This did not include interest or the $120 million in attorney’s fees that Oracle had already been paid by SAP).
  • However, Oracle agreed not enforce the judgment until all appeals are concluded.  

Now, assuming Oracle does not appeal to the Supreme Court, decision day has arrived for Oracle. The Ninth Circuit rejected Oracle’s appeal that it reinstate the $1.3 billion, but did up the amount the district court had arrived at on remittitur ($272 million) by $84.7 million to $356.7 giving Oracle the choice of accepting that amount to end the case, or proceed with a new damages trial.

The heart of the Ninth Circuit’s decision is its holding that while a plaintiff in a copyright infringement case is not required to show that it would have saplicensed the infringed material to recover on a hypothetical license theory (an argument pressed by SAP, since it was undisputed that Oracle would never have licensed the work at issue to SAP), Oracle had failed to present sufficient non-speculative evidence to support the jury’s award of $1.3 billion. This left Oracle with the maximum amount the evidence established based on an alternative damages theory — Oracle’s lost profits plus SAP’s illegal profits — an amount the Ninth Circuit concluded was not $272 million, but $356.7 million.

My prediction: fast and furious negotiations will commence, and the case will settle. Oracle’s chances of recovering materially more than $356.7 million on retrial, given the Ninth Circuit opinion, are negligible, given that Oracle probably put on the best “lost profits/illegal profits” case it could at the first trial. However, Oracle’s chances on improving on that number are not zero, so Oracle will probably be able to obtain more than $356.7 million in a negotiated settlement, but not a great deal more. The settlement is likely to be private, so we may never know the precise amount.

Caveat: Larry Ellison gets to make the call on this for Oracle, and he might be more likely to roll the dice on a retrial than your average CEO.

Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG (9th Cir. August 29, 2014)

[Update, November 18, 2014. As predicted, the case has settled, reportedly for $359 million, just a hair more than the $356.7 million ordered by the Ninth Circuit].