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Manhattan dentist sues patient for posting negative online review

Nima Dayani, who has offices in Midtown, has been trying to extract money from patients who write bad reviews since 2012, asking anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in damages.

In all the lawsuits, Dayani has accused his patients of defamation and hurting any future business. He said that “false negative reviews” have already hurt his practice, forcing him to lay off one of his part-time employees, according to the NY Daily News.

According to BuzzFeed, a Brooklyn woman, Mary Rohs, made an appointment with Dr. Dayani at Advanced NYC Endodontics to be seen on July 16, 2015, to treat her tooth pain. One year later, the fallout from that appointment, including the bad online review and the lawsuit by Dr. Dayani prompted Yelp to get involved.

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Mary Rohs/Yelp.com


In her online review, Rohs complained that the appointment took over two hours because he was in and out of the exam room seeing other patients in between her having X-rays. She claimed she only spoke with him about 30 minutes of the two-and-a-quarter hours she was there.

To make matters worse, she adds, “he couldn’t help determine what was bothering me. I left with a mouth full of pain and a recommendation to see my dentist for a possible cavity.”

Yelp, for the third time ever, placed a “consumer alert” on Dr. Dayani’s Yelp page, warning that his business may be “issuing questionable legal threats against reviewers.”

Yelp contends that reviewers “have a First Amendment right to express their opinions on Yelp.” Vince Sollitto, Yelp’s Senior Vice President for Communications says they have started posting warnings on pages like Dr. Dayani’s as a way to push back against “a small handful of businesses who mistakenly think it’s a good idea to threaten consumers who exercise their free speech rights.”

Dayani says he gets plenty of positive and negative feedback from his patients on Yelp, and he’s comfortable with the reviews. But he claims that Roh’s review wasn’t just a negative review, but defamation. “[Rohs] accused me of malpractice by saying I didn’t diagnose her,” he said. “When you are publicly accusing someone of malpractice, you are damaging their reputation.”

All of the negative reviews were seemingly mundane, like one patient saying he had been given the wrong insurance information, while another patient said his insurance company had been over-billed for $1,000. Dayani says he only sues if a patient refuses to “remove the false statement” or if they demand “monetary compensation to do so.”

This writer is withholding any comment, positive or negative, but what do you, the reader think about this?

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We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our dear friend Karen Graham, who served as Editor-at-Large at Digital Journal. She was 78 years old. Karen's view of what is happening in our world was colored by her love of history and how the past influences events taking place today. Her belief in humankind's part in the care of the planet and our environment has led her to focus on the need for action in dealing with climate change. It was said by Geoffrey C. Ward, "Journalism is merely history's first draft." Everyone who writes about what is happening today is indeed, writing a small part of our history.

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