CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING CASES S.1 Disparagement Zagat Survey, LLC, publishes the
ID: 396361 • Letter: C
Question
CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING CASES S.1 Disparagement Zagat Survey, LLC, publishes the entertainment. The Zagat Survey of New York City Restaurants famous Zagat series of dining, travel, and leisure guides for rated the food at Lucky Cheng's as 9 and rated different cities and locations. The Zagat restaurant guides list service as 15. The Zagat guide then states and a oeau, dlos ndfor caterd Anorur you don' go for the fod at this East Village such as food, décor, and service. These ratings are calculated from surveys of customers of the restaurants, and the Zagat guide often quotes anonymous consumer comments. Asian-Eclectic-rather you go to gawk" at the "bilari- ous cross-dressing" staff wbo tell dirty jokes perform Lucky Cheng's is a restaurant owned by Themed "impromptu floor shorus and offer "lap dances for desseri Restaurants, Inc, that is located in Manhattan, New York obeloudy, i 'can be evhausting, and weary well-wisbers City. Lucky Cheng's is a theme restaurant with a drag queen uggest thcyrs rm cabaret where female impersonators are both waiters and Themed Restaurants sued Zagat for disparagement. Zagat performers, and customer participation contributes to the defended, arguing that the ratings and comments aboutExplanation / Answer
1) The statements that were made about the restraunt are Opinions rather than facts. It is clearlymentioned that Zagat itself provides rankings on scale of 0 to 30 which is based upon customer survey. However Zagat never provided any source of source or evidence that it actually happened. Additionally even if the survey source gets revealed these directly come from customers who form opinions. Beside it is not known that Zagat ever visited the restraunt to check the statements. Thus these could be statemebt of opinions rather than facts.
2) A disparagement is made when the following conditions are met -
untrue statements have been made against plantiff's product/service/trade/business; untrue statements published to third party; knew the statements were untrue; statements are malicilious.
As not all the conditions can be proved by the hotel such as Zagat knew that the statements are untrue hence it cant be filed as disparagement.