Corporate plaintiffs operating heating and air conditioning businesses alleged defamation arising from online reliability ratings published by a consumer organization.
The plaintiffs argued that letter grades assigned under a revised rating system and references to unresolved complaints damaged their business reputations.
The court held that the ratings and accompanying explanations, when read in context of the website’s disclaimers and methodology, would not lower the plaintiffs in the estimation of a reasonable member of the public and therefore were not defamatory.
In any event, the publications would have been protected by qualified privilege and the defence of fair comment.
No malice was established and the action was dismissed.
