Yes, Your Online Reviews Are Protected by the TCPA
July 21, 2015A nasty Zillow review of a real estate agent prompted a defamation lawsuit, which these days pretty much inevitably leads to a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens’ Participation Act. In this instance, the agent had listed the seller’s house as “temporarily off market” instead of “active.” The Collin County trial court denied the seller’s motion to dismiss, but the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed. The seller’s claim that the agent had listed the house as being off market for “over 100 days” was incorrect, but the Court held that the falsity of that statement was immaterial because the agent had actually listed the property that was for 64 days instead. The plaintiffs also failed to establish that listing the house as off market was in accordance with the seller’s instructions, as her complaint that she “did not want her property shown” was not the equivalent of asking it to be listed as “temporarily off market.” Finally, the plaintiffs could not base their defamation case on the seller’s statement that the agent was “incompetent, mentally unstable, or raging from rejection” because those were non-actionable statements of opinion. The Court therefore rendered judgment for the defendant and remanded for a determination of her costs and recoverable attorney fees.
