*You're probably saying, "multitude of re-treatments? Doctor called me first thing in the morning got me in and got me taken care of within 2 hours. Excellent doctor, great staff, lovely office that's conveniently located. His office was accommodating with my appointment time, Dr. Dayani and his assistant made me feel calm and comfortable during the procedure, and best of all, after the root canal I was 100% pain free. Dr. Dayani is a highly professional and gentle doctor and I couldn't recommend him more highly for such a sensitive procedure. What a great office! Many other dentists would have still done the procedure and charged me for it, but Dr Dayani was very honest, even though that meant that he basically lost at hour of his time on me. Fast forward to a week ago, my wife and I were beginning our European honeymoon trip and we decided to stay in New York City for a few days. After suffering through tooth pain for some time, Mary Rohs decided to see a dentist. The defendant, "Jane Doe," never responded to his complaint. He said he has adjusted his practice and opened a larger office after reading a number of negative reviews, including an emergency patient who complained in a one-star Google review about a long wait time at his office. He alleges her comments amount to defamation, and he sued Rohs two days after the review was posted. "After doing a lot of research I chose Dr. Dayani," said one Yelp reviewer called Eva H. "I couldn't be happier. "The question becomes did the person who signed the contract understand what they were giving away and did they understand they were giving away free speech? It's an accusation the dentist has levied against at least four previous patients who have written negative reviews about his practice, according to a BuzzFeed News review of court records. Dayani, who says he gets plenty of positive and negative feedback on Yelp and is comfortable with both, says the claims by Rohs weren't simply a negative review. "Consumers have the right to share their opinions about their experiences with businesses," Yelp said in a blog post announcing the new alerts. The Manhattan endodontist, who has been licensed to practice dentistry in New York since 1999, does have a number of good reviews online from people who have described him as "thorough and knowledgeable." To make matters worse, she adds, "he couldn't help determine what was bothering me. In June 2013, Dayani sued another patient claiming $50,000 in damages after he posted a review on Yelp complaining that the dentist had overcharged him for a root canal. A lie can do tremendous damage and can come at the expense of doctors and staff."
– Yelp has just issued its third ever consumer alert, this one about a dentist in Manhattan who has sued five patients since 2012 for posting negative reviews, reports BuzFeed. Nima Dayani has asked for anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 in damages, so Yelp is warning consumers that Dayani's business is "issuing questionable legal threats against reviewers" and that reviewers "have a First Amendment right to express their opinions on Yelp." Dayani appears to have backed off the lawsuits where patients agreed to remove their negative reviews. In one pending court case, a woman accused him in her review of being unable to diagnose her problem after a two-hour-plus visit. Dayani says that's untrue and that such claims aren't just negative but defamatory. "I got hurt. You will get hurt," he claims the woman told him by phone, because she had been scolded for being gone so long by her boss, reports the New York Daily News. Yelp issued its first alert in May after a Texas pet sitting company sued a customer who violated its "gag" clause, which prevented her from speaking ill of the business; a Florida moving and storage company was issued the second alert in June after it sued a customer for defamation. Buzzfeed reports that both cases are ongoing, and notes that the alerts are being rolled out while Congress considers two bills that could protect consumers from being sued for online reviews. (That pet sitter says its business is now a "shell of its former success" and is seeking $1 million in damages.)