Can You Sue Over a Bad Google Review in NY? What Shapiro v Kushnick-Carr Means (2026)

On October 7, 2026, the Appellate Division, Second Department decided whether an attorney could sue over a Google review of his law firm. The answer was no, and the attorney now owes the reviewer’s attorneys’ fees and costs. This office was not involved in the case. I explain the court’s reasoning below, and then, in a section labeled as such, why I think it turns the SLAPP statute on its head. If you have never been through an appeal, our explainer on how an appellate court reviews a ruling “on the law” is the background.

What the Second Department decided

The plaintiff is an attorney. The defendant posted this review on the public Google profile for his law firm: “Don’s Not Use Him!! He is what gives bad names to attorneys… . A Tinker of many types of law … A MASTER OF NONE!” He sued for defamation. According to the court, his amended complaint sought “damages of not less than $500,000 and to direct the removal of the review.”

She moved to dismiss and asked for attorneys’ fees and costs, arguing that the action was a strategic lawsuit against public participation, a SLAPP suit. In an order dated January 17, 2025, Supreme Court, Nassau County denied both requests. The Second Department reversed “on the law, with costs.” Here is the decision in one card.

The decision does not set the fee amount; that happens on remittal. Nor does it address the separate actual-malice rule in the statute, discussed below.

How New York’s anti-SLAPP law works after 2020

The court relied on the amendments to the statute “that became effective in 2020.” The current definition reaches a claim based on “any communication in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest.” The statute then tells courts how to read “public interest”: it “shall be construed broadly, and shall mean any subject other than a purely private matter.”

The 2020 amendments are chapter 250 of the Laws of 2020, signed November 10, 2020 and effective immediately. Before them, the statute reached only claims “brought by a public applicant or permittee.” The amendments replaced that with the public-forum and public-interest test, changed the fee provision of Civil Rights Law § 70-a from “may” to “shall,” and added the discovery stay to CPLR 3211(g). The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press covered the signing. In Gottwald v Sebert, 40 NY3d 240 (2023), the Court of Appeals held there is “no retroactive effect” when the § 70-a provisions are applied “to the continuation of the action beyond the effective date of the amendments.” The departments have since split on whether the broader definition reaches suits filed before the amendments; a suit filed now is under the new one. In Biagini Realty v Brightman, 244 AD3d 1173 (2d Dept 2025), the same court affirmed a fee award over a post on a business’s Google profile.

For a review, that definition decides most of the case. Once the person who posted it shows the suit fits, the motion to dismiss “shall be granted” unless the plaintiff shows a substantial basis in law, and discovery is stayed while the motion is pending. Consequently, a business owner who sues over a review should expect to argue the merits on the papers, early, without depositions.

The fourth step is where a review lawsuit becomes expensive. In Shapiro the claim lacked a substantial basis, so fees and costs followed.

Opinion or fact: the test for an online review

Defamation needs a false statement. The court put it in the words of Gross v New York Times Co., 82 NY2d 146: “Since falsity is a necessary element of a defamation cause of action and only facts are capable of being proven false, it follows that only statements alleging facts can properly be the subject of a defamation action.” Consequently, “an expression of pure opinion is not actionable, no matter how vituperative or unreasonable it may be.”

The court then applied three questions to the review, and they are the questions courts use to separate fact from opinion in any review of your business:

When a review can still support a lawsuit

The decision is not a rule that reviews are immune. The Shapiro review stayed protected because it did not “accuse the plaintiff of any specific crime, wrongful act, or professional misconduct” and implied no undisclosed facts.

Take an invented example. A dentist in Massapequa opens the practice’s Google profile on a Monday and finds two new one-star reviews. The first says: “WORST DENTIST ON LONG ISLAND!!! Rude and overpriced. Avoid!!!” The second says: “This office billed my insurance for two crowns I never got.” The first review is the Shapiro review in a different profession: no precise meaning, nothing that can be proven true or false, written in the style the court called hyperbole. The second is a statement of fact. Either the crowns were placed and billed, or they were not, and the insurer’s records will say which.

That second review is the kind that can support a claim, if it is false. It still sits in a public forum, so the dentist may face the same motion, and to recover damages may have to prove actual malice under step 3. Consequently, a false factual review is a claim worth evaluating, not a claim worth filing on the day it appears.

Defamation also requires a statement “published without privilege or authorization”; our older notes on qualified privilege in a defamation action show how a privilege can defeat a claim even when a statement turns out to be wrong.

What a business or professional can do about a bad review

Start with the platform’s rules. Google’s Business Profile help page is direct: “You can report any review, but only those that violate Google policies are eligible for removal.” It also says: “Do not report a review just because you disagree with it or dislike it. Google doesn’t get involved in conflict between businesses and customers.”

The policy that matters most to a professional is in Google’s Maps content policy. Under “Offensive content,” Google lists “[u]nsubstantiated allegations of unethical behavior or criminal wrongdoing.” The same policy prohibits “[c]ontent that is not based on a real experience” and content posted “on a competitor’s place or business to undermine that business’ or product’s reputation.” A review you believe fits one of those categories can be reported from the Business Profile, with a reason selected. A review that is only harsh may fit none of them; Google decides.

Next, answer it carefully. A short, factual public reply (“We have no record of a patient by this name; please call the office manager”) tells the next reader what you would tell a court. Do not discuss the client’s or patient’s matter in the reply; argue the facts with records, in the right forum, if it comes to that. Anger in a reply reads exactly the way the court read the review.

Then preserve the evidence. Reviews get edited and deleted. Take a screenshot showing the full text, the reviewer’s name as displayed, the date, and the URL. Save the business records that prove or disprove each factual statement in it.

Last, weigh the cost honestly; the fee statute is the reason. The Second Department’s FOIL fee decision of September 30, 2026, a different fee statute, is a reminder that a fee award can grow on appeal.

Bring these to the first call:

• a screenshot of the review with the date, the displayed name and the URL;
• the records that bear on each factual statement in it (the appointment log, the invoice, the file);
• any reply you posted, and any report you filed with the platform and its status;

Jason Tenenbaum’s view: the SLAPP statute turned on its head

What follows is my opinion, not the law. The Second Department’s decision is binding precedent today, and the paragraphs below are my reasons for thinking it shows a problem in the statute.

Well, the problem with the decision is that while it’s faithful to the law of defamation, what it essentially allows is for ex-clients and other people who have issues with the attorney to go on public forums and post opinion-based material. And there’s no legal remedy or basis to get those posts taken down. And this goes beyond attorneys. This applies to any small or medium-sized business where bad reviews are going to be a problem.

And more alarmingly, what is fact and what is opinion, well, that line is oftentimes blurred. And the judges themselves don’t get it right all the time. So in this case, the Supreme Court denied the motion to dismiss. The Second Department reversed. It really is a very difficult line.

And since anything that’s written on Google invokes the SLAPP statute, it can then impose a mandatory assessment of attorney fees upon an attorney seeking to contest the posting on Google. One of the unintended consequences of the 2020 expansion of the SLAPP statute is that it now imposes tremendous risk upon a party who wants in good faith to challenge statements that are not true, yet because they’re not actionable, not only will they not be taken down, but you will have to pay the other party’s legal fees. I find this very troubling. That really is what I would call the SLAPP statute turned on its head.

And again, look, the SLAPP law is there for a purpose. It’s there to protect freedom of speech. So if you make a statement which you have a good faith belief is true and someone who has a lot more money than you do threatens to sue you for defamation, the SLAPP statute acts as a shield to make people think twice before they bring those lawsuits against you. Lawsuits that are brought in bad faith to chill free speech. I think the SLAPP statute is a good statute. I think it’s well-intended. I think it does serve the public benefit. But nobody has ever said that the plaintiff here acted in bad faith. That is the law of unintended consequences.

In my experience, a defamation suit over letters sent to a limited number of people was dismissed because it was opinion. But there was no SLAPP fee award because it was a private letter and not public. Put the same kind of statement on Google, in front of an entire town, and the case gets dismissed and the plaintiff pays the legal fees.

So what this means is if you’re bringing an action in defamation, you need to be sure that what you’re looking to remove is an actionable statement of fact. So there’s levels of inquiry that are done here. Inquiry number one, is it a statement of fact? Inquiry number two, is it a true or false statement? And then the third inquiry is whether it’s a statement that creates public participation. That would be a comment to the community at large, or to a limited group.

That is my view. The appellate courts will test it, and the reach of the 2020 amendments, as the law matures.

Sources

• Shapiro v Kushnick-Carr, 2026 NY Slip Op 05822 (2d Dept Oct. 7, 2026)
• Civil Rights Law § 76-a
• Civil Rights Law § 70-a
• CPLR 3211
• Chapter 250 of the Laws of 2020 (A5991-A); Gottwald v Sebert, 40 NY3d 240 (2023); Biagini Realty v Brightman, 244 AD3d 1173 (2d Dept 2025)
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, “Reporters Committee applauds changes to New York anti-SLAPP law” (Nov. 10, 2020)
• Google Business Profile Help: Report inappropriate reviews on your Business Profile
• Google Maps User Generated Content Policy: Prohibited and restricted content
• Gross v New York Times Co., 82 NY2d 146; Davis v Boeheim, 24 NY3d 262; Mann v Abel, 10 NY3d 271; Stiloski v Wingate, 241 AD3d 958; Kasavana v Vela, 172 AD3d 1042, as cited and quoted in the Second Department’s decision