text: When Med Express sued Amy Nicholls for giving negative feedback on eBay, she didn't back down and remove the feedback. Instead, she lawyered up, acquiring pro bono counsel with help from Paul Levy at Public Citizen, who's been called "the Web Bully's worst enemy." 
   
   Med Express founder Richard Radey quickly backed down and apologized, but it didn't sit well. "Problem is, I don't believe a word of what he says," Levy told Ars in 2013. Radey had a history of such lawsuits. Levy sought sanctions and attorneys' fees. 
   
   That battle has, at long last, been won. A Medina County, Ohio, judge ruled (PDF) this week that Med Express and Radey must pay $19,250 to Tom Haren and Jeffrey Nye, the two Ohio lawyers who represented Nicholls and one other defendant. Levy worked on the case pro bono and sought no fees. 
   
   "This is an important win for consumers," Levy said in a statement about the ruling. "It shows that consumers have recourse when companies such as Med Express try to bully and silence consumers from telling other potential customers about their bad experiences." 
   
   Tale of two trials 
   
   The road to the sanctions was a long and winding one. The original sanctions motion was tried in January 2014. According to Public Citizen, that resulted in a deal, expressed orally in court, in which Med Express would agree to pay $5,500 in attorneys' fees. However, Med Express wouldn't sign the agreement or make payments. With the two sides disagreeing, Judge James Leaver scheduled a second sanctions trial. 
   
   During the second trial, Radey's testimony "varied from the first hearing," the judge noted in his order. "The testimony wasn't credible." 
   
   Further Reading eBay seller who sued over bad feedback apologizes—but he’s done it before Originally, Radey said he watched feedback from the two users come "all 1's" in the detailed seller ratings. He also said that eBay had given him the idea to file suit against the buyers. 
   
   In fact, Nicholls had given various ratings to Med Express, including a "5" for item description, a "3" for shipping and handling charges, and a "1" for seller communication. 
   
   In any case, an eBay representative later testified that Radey wouldn't have even been able to see the detailed seller ratings, which are anonymous. 
   
   The judge also found that the speech by Nicholls was partly opinion, which is protected speech, but that some of their narrative feedback could be seen as statements of fact. However, those factual statements were "undeniably true and Mr. Radey had no objective reason whatsoever to question their veracity," the judge wrote. 
   
   In Nicholls' case, the poor feedback she gave stemmed from having to pay an extra $1.44 in postage due after paying $175 for a microscope light and a $12 shipping fee. 
   
   Following the second trial, Radey's original lawyer James Amodio agreed to pay part of the attorneys' fees, and Public Citizen dropped him from their motion for sanctions. 
   
   Radey had two different lawyers during the sanctions proceedings, and the second lawyer stopped representing him in July 2015. The sanctions order notes that Radey is currently not represented by counsel, and he did not submit a post-trial brief. ||||| An eBay seller who sued two customers over their negative feedback online has been ordered to pay $19,250 to cover their legal fees. 
   
   This week, a judge ordered Med Express Inc., a refurbished medical equipment seller who sued back in 2013, to pay for the two Ohio lawyers who defended the case pro bono. 
   
   Med Express filed a lawsuit for libel in Medina County's Court of Common Pleas in Ohio in 2013, claiming that their feedback on eBay hurt the company's reputation and a lower overall rating increased seller costs to eBay. 
   
   One of those customers was Amy Nicholls, an office administrator for a manufacturer in Greenville, South Carolina. She bought a microscope light for her employer in February 2013 from Med Express. After paying $175 plus $12 in shipping for the item, Med Express said in the court filing that it "took the equipment to the Valley City post office, where it was weighed and shipped to Nicholls." 
   
   Though Med Express claimed that it paid the full shipping cost, "for some reason unknown to Med Express, the equipment was received by Nicholls with $1.44 postage due," according to the court record. Med Express apologized immediately and offered to reimburse Nicholls for the postage due, but she went ahead and posted a "negative" comment about the charge on eBay's website: "Order arrived with postage due with no communication from seller beforehand," she wrote. 
   
   Med Express filed a nearly identical suit on the same day against another customer, Dennis Rogan. He left a "neutral" review. 
   
   After receiving negative publicity over their suit, Med Express apologized and said it was withdrawing the lawsuit. 
   
   "Please understand that our customer was never the target of this lawsuit. We had instructed our attorneys to ask for $1 in damages. Her feedback was also never an issue. We fully support her right and all of our customers' right to leave any feedback they desire -- true or otherwise!" Med Express President Richard Radey wrote in a statement back in 2013. "The issue involved Detailed Seller Ratings or DSRs. The low ratings caused us to lose our Top Rated Seller Plus standing." 
   
   But in April 2013, Nicholls, with the help of Jeffrey Nye and Thomas Haren, two lawyers in Ohio who offered to take the case for free, filed a counterclaim against Med Express and its attorney, claiming frivolous conduct and "malice or aggravated or egregious fraud." They cited seven different times Med Express sued out-of-state eBay customers who would have difficulty defending themselves in court. Nicholls' attorneys said they had seen Radey's comments and were aware he had dropped the lawsuit against Nicholls, but they continued with their countersuit all the same. 
   
   Med Express did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News about this week's ruling by the court, which heard the cases for Rogan and Nicholls together and issued the sanctions in favor of them jointly. 
   
   After the ruling, Nye and Haren said in a joint statement, "We were obviously happy to see that the Magistrate recognized the frivolous nature of the claims." 
   
   "Should the Magistrate’s Decision be adopted by the Court, and we certainly expect that it will, this long and frustrating battle will finally be concluded. Thankfully Amy and Dennis stood up for what they believed in, and in doing so they struck a blow in favor of the First Amendment rights of all online commenters," the attorneys said in the statement. 
   
   They said the case highlights the need for Ohio to join more than twenty other states in enacting an anti-SLAPP statute, which stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation, "so that Ohio citizens will be protected from bully tactics."
target: – An eBay merchant who sued two customers over negative reviews in 2013 was ordered this week to pay more than $19,000 in legal fees by an Ohio judge, ABC News reports. Two years ago, Amy Nicholls bought a microscope from eBay seller Med Express. When the microscope arrived, she had to pay an extra $1.44 in postage despite already paying a $12 shipping fee. Med Express apologized for the mistake and offered to reimburse her, but she left a negative review on eBay anyway. Med Express claimed Nicholls' bad review hurt its reputation and sued her for libel. ABC reports the company filed a "nearly identical" suit that same day against a second customer, Dennis Rogan, for leaving a "neutral" review. The lawsuits, understandably, brought negative attention onto Med Express, and the company withdrew them, ABC reports. Regardless, Nicholls counter-sued Med Express with the help of two lawyers working for free. According to Ars Technica, Med Express agreed to pay $5,500 in legal fees during a trial in 2014 but never did, leading to a second trial. The judge found the company changed its testimony and wasn't credible, ordering it to now pay $19,250 to the two lawyers representing Nicholls. "We were obviously happy to see that the Magistrate recognized the frivolous nature of the claims," according to a statement from the lawyers, who credited Nicholls and Rogan for striking "a blow in favor of the First Amendment rights of all online commenters." (The first item ever sold on eBay was broken.)