Please don't speak recklessly, or you'll be sued without warning!
Compiled from: Red Star News, Supreme Court Website
Nowadays, more and more people express their emotions and demands through the internet. However, it should be noted that the internet is not a lawless place. If it indeed infringes on someone else's reputation and constitutes a tort, one must also bear the corresponding legal responsibility. So, how should reputation infringement on the internet be determined?
Case review
On February 18, 2019, Cai purchased a certain brand of wooden doors and titanium-aluminum doors at a building materials market in Pengzhou City, Sichuan Province, and signed an order contract on the spot.
On June 27 of the same year, Mr. and Mrs. Cai discovered that the wooden door installed in their home had no brand label, which meant that the installed wooden door was not the brand they had originally ordered. Therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Cai requested the merchant to compensate them three times the amount of the purchased product, but the merchant refused to pay.
The couple, Cai, reported to the court and provided clues to the TV station for interviews and coverage, and posted comments on their WeChat Moments, forwarding them to the residential community owner group.
In July 2019, the merchant filed a lawsuit in court against Mr. Cai and his wife for a dispute over the right to reputation, requesting that the Cai couple immediately cease the defamatory and infringing acts against the store. The store demanded that the Cai couple immediately delete the published content, apologize on the relevant distribution platforms to eliminate the negative impact, and compensate for losses of 50,000 yuan.
Relevant legal provisions
Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Defamation Cases
Article 9
Question: How is it determined whether disputes over reputation rights caused by criticism or comments on product quality and service quality constitute infringement?
Answer: Consumers criticizing or commenting on the product quality or service quality of producers, operators, or sellers should not be considered as infringing on others' right to reputation. However, if one takes the opportunity to slander or defame, causing damage to their reputation, it should be considered as an infringement of the right to reputation.
Civil Code of the People's Republic of China
Article 110
Natural persons enjoy rights such as the right to life, bodily integrity, health, name, likeness, reputation, honor, privacy, and marital autonomy.
Legal persons and unincorporated organizations enjoy rights to name, reputation, and honor.
Article 1024
Civil subjects enjoy the right to reputation. No organization or individual may infringe upon others’ right to reputation by means of insult, defamation, or the like.
Reputation refers to the social evaluation of a civil subject’s moral character, prestige, talent, credit, and the like.
[1] Court Opinion
After trial, the Pengzhou People's Court held that the actions of Cai and his wife were all legitimate rights protection behaviors, and the merchant's request for the two to bear liability for defamation has no factual or legal basis. Therefore, the court did not support it, and, in accordance with relevant legal provisions, ruled to dismiss the merchant's litigation request.
Dissatisfied with such a result, the merchant filed an appeal. Recently, the Chengdu Intermediate People's Court made a second-instance judgment, upholding the original verdict.
[1] The author's perspective
From the perspective of China's current laws, the right to reputation refers to the social evaluation enjoyed by civil subjects. At present, there are three types protected by law: first, the reputation rights of citizens; second, the reputation rights of legal persons; and third, the reputation rights of heroes and martyrs.
In this case, the standard for determining whether the legal entity's right to reputation has been harmed is whether the social evaluation of the legal entity's product reputation and business credibility has been disparaged (the social evaluation here should be based on the common judgment of the general social subjects, rather than the subjective feelings of individual subjects).Mr. and Mrs. Cai made statements on media platforms about the installed wooden door not being the brand they ordered. These statements are based on factual descriptions, merely criticizing the quality of the merchant's product and services, without containing extreme or insulting language, and are not considered insults, defamation, or disparagement. Therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Cai do not constitute reputation infringement.
With the rapid development of the Internet, particularly with the widespread use of social media platforms like Weibo, citizens have more diverse ways to comment and express opinions. However, any rights must comply with legal norms and be reasonably restrained and balanced. Those who publish statements should maintain subjective good faith and make statements based on facts and evidence. When statements go beyond the scope of public opinion supervision and the reasonable limits of expression, deviating from objective and rational discussion into personal attacks or malicious insults, even in an online environment, and even if intended for public interest or legitimate public opinion supervision, they will no longer be protected by law.
