The case dates back to May 2000, when Ronald DiGiovanni obtained
a service warranty – provided by Pennsylvania insurance company
Penn Warranty Corp – for his 1994 GMC Sonoma truck.
The truck broke down, but Penn Warranty denied DiGiovanni's
warranty claim. Consequently, he brought a small claims action
against the firm, alleging breach of contract. The dispute
eventually settled with a payout of $2,500.
But DiGiovanni was still unhappy. He set up a 45-page website –
PennWarrantyLitigation.com – complaining about the firm. The site
was available online for a few weeks in January 2004 but is no
longer operating.
According to court papers the site contained some negative
comments about the car service warranty industry, auto insurance
and judges from New Jersey, but mostly focused on the small claims
dispute.
Penn Warranty took objection, and filed a defamation action in
relation to eight statements contained on the site, including
descriptions of the firm as “crooked” and “blatantly
dishonest”.
In response, DiGiovanni argued that the comments were truthful
and his personal opinion.
In a ruling, published in late October, Justice Judith Gische
agreed with the latter argument.
“Competing with an individual's right to protect one's own
reputation, is the constitutionally guaranteed right to free
speech,” she wrote. “Consequently, statements that merely express
opinion are not actionable as defamation, no matter how offensive,
vituperative or unreasonable they may be.”
“Moreover, in the context of statements pertaining to issues of
consumer advocacy, courts have been loath to stifle someone's
criticism of goods or services,” she added. “The courts have
recognised that personal opinion about goods and services are a
matter of legitimate public concern and protected speech.”
On this occasion, said Justice Gische, the defamation action had
to be dismissed because, on looking at the site as a whole, it was
obvious that DiGiovanni was a disgruntled consumer and the speech
in question was “merely a statement of defendant's personal opinion
about the quality of services provided by plaintiff company.”
The Justice was also asked to rule on whether DiGiovanni’s use
of the domain name – PennWarrantyLitigation.com – made him liable
for damages in terms of the US Lanham Act, because it infringed
upon Penn Warranty’s registered trade mark in the name.
Justice Gische said no, because DiGiovanni was not using the
website for a commercial purpose and accordingly could not have the
necessary bad faith intent to profit from the trade mark.
Nor were the names of the websites confusingly similar, she
added.
