In “ridiculous lawsuit” news, a class action lawsuit against Yelp was dismissed recently because… well, the rationale was stupid.
Several Yelpers banded together to sue Yelp because they signed up and freely wrote reviews… and didn’t get paid for it. Basically, a bunch of Yelpers suing Yelp for Yelping. Yes, I said “Yelpers” as in plural — meaning more than one person actually thought this was a good idea. And they have real-sounding names too: Lily Jeung, Dr. Allen Panzer, Amy Sayers and Darren Walchesky.
This is one of those rare, blue moon times when I’ve ever agreed with a lawyer 100%:
Adrianos Facchetti, Yelp’s attorney, said in an email that the action was a ‘frivolous lawsuit that should never have been filed’: “The argument that voluntarily using a free service equates to an employment relationship is absurd on its face, unsupported by law and contradicted by the existence of dozens of websites like Yelp that consumers use to help one another…”
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiff’s filings were filled with “rambling and invective-filled papers.”
So, everything is right in the world again. In sum, typing in “www.yelp.com” in the address bar is not like arriving at the Yelp offices for an interview. Populating the fields of a registration form is not a job interview. Pressing “submit” and being assigned a username is a not a job offer. And subsequently writing up a 92-word Yelp review because you felt like it doesn’t mean you deserved to get paid for it.
