A Massachusetts jewelry store employee must pay $34,500 to a competing jeweler after he posted a negative review of the store on Yelp that a jury decided was fake.
A jury found Adam Jacobs guilty of posting a long, negative Yelp review of his employer’s rival, talking about a visit to the other business that never happened.
He told Yelpers that the people who worked there were “cold-blooded thieves” and told potential customers to "go elsewhere."
The jewelry stores are located less than a half-mile from each other.
The owner of the rival company investigated the post on his own, and then filed a lawsuit claiming that the post smeared the business' reputation.
The jury decided that the owner’s store did nothing wrong and that the post caused the owner caused "emotional distress."