A Federal District Court upheld the ruling of a lower court on Friday and dismissed a case brought by a Chicago lawyer who wanted to sue 19 people for leaving bad on-line reviews for his law firm because of xenophobic comments he made on Facebook, Law.com reports.

In 2017, David Freydin made numerous idiotic comments on his Facebook page demeaning Ukrainians, such as asking, “Did Trump put Ukraine on the travel ban list?! We just cannot find a cleaning lady!”  Readers of the comments then went to Facebook, Google and Yelp and left low-rated reviews for his law firm and for himself personally, including calling him embarrassment and a disgrace to the US judicial system.”

Freydin wanted to sue 19 people who posted those poor reviews on the websites, claiming he is the victim of a civil conspiracy that libeled him, involving people who never used his legal services but wrote negative reviews anyway. 

The judges disagreed, saying the reviews were protected speech because they gave an opinion of Freydin’s business.  “Whether a statement is an opinion or assertion of fact is a question of law,” the judges wrote in their opinion. “Freydin and his law firm point to ‘terrible experience,’ ‘awful customer service,’ and ‘don’t waste your money’ as examples of implied statements of fact contained in the reviews. We do not read them that way.”

The judges also stated that Freydin could not sue even though the defendants had not retained his services, something Freydin equates to a fraud.  “This approach conflicts with how courts typically think of libel per se claims,” the opinion stated.  “The point is not whether the individual commentator had a direct consumer relationship with the business that she reviewed. Rather, we ask if a reader could understand whether the reviewer was expressing opinions or facts. The comments in this case fall clearly on the side of opinion.”