Even the judge says the business in question ran by Mr Sandless did not have an appropriate license. Did she get screwed by a scammer? Why would she rant on if it was not true? Not only did the victim lose her money, on top of that, she was fined $1000 for her rant... When it comes to Staten Island: We do not believe in the right to free speech... Our justice system is about corruption.... Civil Court Judge Philip Straniere Looking for floor refinishing? Call Mr. Sandless Of course, all this is just my opinion.... Maybe you should sue me over free speech.... Certainly not the kind of negative publicity that Mr. Sandless is looking for, not when you have business suing their own clients or customers..... BTW, this story will be on tonight. Staten Island Women Fined $1000 For Making Negative Comment On Yelp To a certain degree... This country really isnt free... more like slavery to taxes, fees, and fines... This is all our govt really cares about.... My bad, maybe this should be moved to politics....
I think there are a lot of people who could do with some self moderation. Personally I'd like to think anyone who read her review automatically discounted it as the work or a crank but the company had reason to be more concerned. How can a person be a "scam"? He robs customers implies he took more than just his fees. I'd be more concerned about a trend that showed up a while back about seminars - but could easily be applied to any service you use... In the fine print there would be a clause saying that you couldn't say/write anything negative about the seminar - even if it was true! This is long, but thorough http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2015/2015-ny-slip-op-51349-u.html Judges love people who shoot their mouths off and then self represent. Must have been a fun hearing.
I do not know her exact case, but I certainly know the feeling of being ripped off; Recently I look my car into the shop for repairs, after changing several parts, and paying over $800, the shop never fixed the car, in fact, it was not related to any of the new parts, nor did they put the old parts back; they got paid, and car still not fixed... Some people are just not the professionals they claim to be... and to be honest, this should have never been in a court room to begin with, if he had done such a professional job, would she left such a negative review? and such negative attention/press does not do his business any good either...
I agree totally, but what the agrieved customer has to realise is that being calm and reasoned their complaint will be taken more seriously. If she'd just said "I had a problem, they agreed to fix and turned up on time but their solution didn't work and now they won't take my calls" there would have been no court case.
I am not a lawyer, but for her to have been found guilty in a court, she had to libel the business which basically means that it was proven in court that she wrote things that she knew to be false or at the very least could not prove them to be true. That said, freedom of speech allows wide latitude in what can be said without repercussions. If she had the resources and desire, she could probably win this on appeal in higher courts. Lower court judges are overturned a lot on issues of this type.