Adelaide a chinese lawer has won $750,000 in libel damages!
The reason is that a woman Googled his firm with malicious comments!
Has had a serious impact on his firm`s business and mental health!
Chinese lawer receives malicious comments
In October 2018, Isabel Lok reportedly gave a 1-star rating to Gordon Cheng`s law firm in both Chinese and English on Google and made a lot of negative comments.
Cheng lawer,66, was born in hong kong and most of his clients are from the chinese community in adelaide, or from mainland and hong kong, china.
He told court that in february 2019, when a client told him about the bad comments, he realized it cost him about 80% of his clients.
He said the post brought him "great pain, anxiety, and economic difficulties."
In March 2019, he sent Ms. Lok a Concerns Notice and filed a complaint with Google.
Instead of deleting the comment, Lok changed the username to Bel, then Cindy and Peter.
Google removed the comment on April 30,2019, but Lok later posted similar comments under two other names.
In one of her comments, she denied that Cheng lawer said she had never been a client.
"Your database is incomplete. I did discuss it with you," she wrote.
Lok did not appear in person or represented by Lawer.
Cheng lawer said it was a "very fair verdict."
"I serve the community, I do a lot of public work and I don`t know why I get these comments," he said. "
"Legislation should change to stop this from happening in the future, otherwise no matter how hard you work, it`s easy to be destroyed by social media in a few months or days." "
Google data submitted to the court showed that the review had about 800 views per month after it was published.
Others on google gave five-star reviews of mr cheng.
The defendant refused to apologize for his anxiety
Mr Cheng`s accountant, Karen Phu, estimated the total revenue loss of Cheng lawer from November 2018 to January 2020 was A $631,229.
Judge Katrina Bochner wrote in her verdict:" Cheng said that Lok`s actions had left him in a tremendous amount of pain. "
"Every time he turned on the computer to see if the defendant had any new comments, he was anxious. "
"The loss of economics caused by malicious comments brought him great pain, anxiety and economic difficulties. In April 2019, Cheng lawer was diagnosed with depression and began taking antidepressants. "
"He never met Lok and didn`t represent her. The only conclusion we can draw is that her aim is to destroy Cheng`s business and bring him pain, anxiety and economic difficulties. "
Judge Bochner ordered Ms Lok to pay $750,000 to Cheng lawer as compensation.
She said his business recovered faster than expected after the bad reviews were dropped, and it was unclear whether his depression was due only to business losses.
She said Locke never apologized or offered any compensation.
Judge Bochner said:" In fact, the defendant`s only response to this was to change the username and then write another bad comment. "
Ms. Lok will also have to pay compensation costs.
