A Richmond-based wedding photographer has received $115,000 after a client unleashed defamatory comments online that cost the company its business.
Last week, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that Amara Wedding and its owner, Kitty Chan, was subjected to attacks on her “integrity, ethics and reputation” by bride Emily Liao.
“This case is an example of the dangers of using the internet to publish information without proper regard for its accuracy,” Justice Gordon Weatherill wrote in the introduction to his decision.
Weatherill’s decision outlined the events, stating that Liao hired Amara Wedding in April 2015 to photograph her July wedding with a package of services valued at around $6,000. While Liao paid a deposit, the remainder of payment was due shortly before the wedding. At the end of May, Liao was told that neither Chan or her partner, Kevin Leung, would be available to photograph their wedding as they would be in Japan. Instead, their colleague Snow Zhang was send to take pre-wedding photographs.
Unhappy with Zhang’s photographs, Liao cancelled the remainder of her payment. As a result, the Amara Wedding staff completed the contracted services, but withheld the photos and videos until they received full payment. Liao then began a small claims action which ended in favour of the photographer in 2016.
Before this small claims decision was made, however, Weatherill wrote Liao “published numerous disparaging comments about the plaintiff’s wedding services on the internet, using various English and Chinese language blogs, forums and social media sites, including Facebook, VanPeople, Weibo (Sina blog), Weixin (WeChat) and Blogger.”
For example, on Aug. 26, 2015, Liao posted to VanPeople, “This wedding business, named Amara Wedding, is so shady that it shall forever be etched in my memories for life, and is located in Central Plaza, Richmond BC Canada.”
Furthermore, on Jan. 16, 2016, Liao posted to Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, “I caution everyone who is needing wedding photography services to stay away from Amara Wedding, you’d be throwing your money away. They are two-faced and dishonest, depending on whether the contract has been signed or not, engaging in bait and switch tactics, and you will need to be prepared to litigate any disputes with them because their owner has tons of excuses. Once money passes to these fraudsters, don’t expect to get your money back.”
Several other social media comments were described by Weatherill, continuing until mid-July, 2016.
“There is no doubt that (Liao) was dissatisfied with what she perceived as poor quality wedding photographs,” Weatherill wrote in his decision. “However, she has failed to prove that her displeasure was justified.”
According to Weatherill’s decision, Amara Wedding terminated its employees and, in early January 2017, stopped doing business.
As a result, Chan was awarded $75,000 for general damages, $15,000 for aggravated damages and $25,000 for punitive damages.
Weatherill wrote that he gave the punitive damages because of the way Liao attacked Chan online.
“(Liao) and others who think it is acceptable to use the internet as a vehicle to vent their frustrations, must be given the message that there will be consequences if their publications are defamatory.”
