Ore. dentist sues patient for $300,000 for bad online review
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LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. – A Lake Oswego dentist is suing a former patient because the patient posted negative reviews about him online.
Dr. Mo Saleh wants $300,000, saying his patient, Spencer Bailey, harmed his reputation. But Bailey said he shouldn’t pay the price for telling the truth.
Bailey now has a lawyer and an expensive court battle ahead of him after his fallout with Saleh, who works at Optima Dental in Lake Oswego.
Bailey suspected he was getting questionable care.
"I had never had a cavity before I set foot in his office," he said. "He told me the day that I saw him that I had 10 or so cavities, which threw me for a loop – I was nervous that I had some other health problem."
Bailey posted a negative review on the website Yelp. He said three weeks later Saleh demanded Bailey take down the posting or be sued. Bailey said he removed it immediately.
"In hindsight it didn't matter because even though I took down the opinion online I'm still right here," he said.
Saleh declined to speak to KATU News.
Just a month ago a Beaverton church pastor seeking a half million dollars from three former members for negative statements they posted online had his case thrown out by the judge.
Saleh is seeking $300,000 from Bailey for lost profits, emotional distress and damage to his reputation.
"The insinuation that this negative opinion, one of many, cost him $100,000 a week in lost business, I think it is a stretch," Bailey said.
Bailey's lawyer said that Yelp and other websites are protected from being sued and can't be held liable for one person's opinion.
So, how is a dentist supposed to defend himself? Anyone can go online and bash their healthcare provider. I don't think the dentist would sue unless he really believed his patient had 10 cavities. Maybe the patient should have gotten a second and third opinion before trashing this dentist's reputation.
Welcome to Obamacare.
@KOMO_Sapiens You're an idiot. This case has nothing to do with Obamacare and everything to do with using the web to air your grievances.Â
This is obviously the type of provider I would avoid. Having an opinion is not a crime. He must be money hungry or trying to offset his income. Consumer reviews help most businesses and if he is offended by them than maybe he should try a line of work with no clients
You can't sue someone for their opinion. Stupid.
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Dr. Saleh needs to consider a career change after this. Who would be dumb enough to continue being his patient when there's a good likelihood that he'll attempt to sue them if they don't like his work?Â
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Dental out of pocket costs are enough of a headache, who needs added aggravation from this joker?
 @Smokin Bear You can sue someone for damaging your business and your reputation with unfounded claims. It's called slander. We don't know who is right and who is wrong in this case. But posting ignorant comments on Yelp does not help anyone.
Kiss your dental career goodbye...
Here's a thought: Don't suck as a dentist....
 @Poisonous Giraffe How do you know he sucks? Maybe, he was trying his best to help the poor guy by fixing his 10 cavities.
What is the point of having a web site where you can rate a doctor or dentist if you have to fear being sued. I highly doubt that the patient's comments did that much damage to his business. Probably not a good dentist and he knows it and is blaming that poor patient.
 @cajunurse I'm sure the dentist did not ask to be a part of Yelp. You cannot have your business removed from Yelp. Anyone with an internet connection can sign up and bash your business on Yelp.
The patient is implying that Dr. Saleh made up the cavities, right? Â So...what did the x-ray say? Did he really have 10 cavities? This seems like it would be important info, or to hear a second opinion from another dentist.Â
@seamonkey that X-ray question is a huge one. If the X-rays show cavities, the complaint is unfair. If the X-ray shows no cavities, or was replaced by an X-ray of another patient with 10 cavities, that dentist should lose his license forever. Either way, taking down the review seems to be the remedy, so I don't get the huge lawsuit which will never stand up.
So people are not allowed to have honest opinions anymore? Â If you have a wonderful review history and one bad one, the good reviews far outweigh the bad. Â Most have a general mix of both and it's up to the consumer to decide. Â Unbelievable!
Slandering a doctor without knowing if you actually have cavities or not is an "honest opinion?"Â Maybe people reviewing businesses or their doctors should do their due diligence before slandering someone who may be looking out for their best interest.
$100k a week??? Good grief is this overbilling at it's finest or what? Buck up Dr, everyone has a right to their oppinion. Maybe he did have 10+ cavities. What probably made the patient mad was when he got the quote to fix them all!
I feel that the publicity from this lawsuit is going to be worse for his career than the review.
I also don't understand why the guy removed the review. If you give an honest opinion about the level of service you received, you have no worries and the dentist would have no case.
 @nomad The supposition is that the Dentist made some kind of threat to the guy which caused him to remove it before he could think through his options.
If I lived in that area, I wouldn't go to that dentist after hearing this news. It is ridiculous that he'd sue for that.Â
$100,000 a week as a dentist... YEAH RIGHT... and yes opinions are opinions.. this guy should grow the hell up instead of crying like a lil'baby to mommy and daddy.....
@Freespeech if dentists are bringing in $5.2 mil per year, I will stop my business right now and go back to school at the age of 41. Talk about an outlandish figure.
I'd post a comment but I don't want him suing me too!
I say, sue the dentist for being a bully!!!!!! Consumors have to be protected for giving an honest review.
This case has zero merit. It will not go to trial, and the judge will toss it. I hope this guy sues the dentist for his legal fees
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Not every potential patient reads Yelp, but EVERY potential patient will know about this frivolous lawsuit.
 @bagsofdirt The Streisand effect at work.
What a horrible money hungry person this dentist is revealing himself to be. Â
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Its absurd to think you can sue someone for giving an opinion when you provide a service to the public and more specifically this person.Â
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I hope he counter sues this dentist for emotional distress by frivolous lawsuit..Â
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The day we are ordered to be quiet is the day we are no longer Americans.Â
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Suing someone for a bad review is absurd but... did I miss the part of the story where the guy went to a different dentist who told him he had no cavities? This story just makes it seem like this guy was told he had cavities, decided that wasn't true and wrote a bad review without actually knowing whether the dentist was right or not. Turns out, even if you never really had cavities before, if you go to the dentist for the first time after awhile of not going, you can still have a lot of cavities and/or pre-cavities: I had 13 once after not going to the dentist for a few years, 7 of which needed needed 4 fillings between them, and the rest just needing special toothpaste. I'm not convinced that this guy just somehow knows deep down that he doesn't get cavities. That, combined with the fact that he removed his review right away definitely makes me lean towards thinking this guy just being a mouthy bitter moron, though the doctor is still reacting inappropriately.
Wow! This dentist has some serious insecurity, and self esteem issues!!!Â
The guy in the story can relax for now. Â Here's why. Â There had been several lawsuits from business owners to Yelp reviewers. Â None of them succeeded because judge dismissed the case or the plaintiff dropped the lawsuit in the end like f---ing quitters. Â That's what I think will happen. Â But if the dentist keeps pushing forward without quitting, then the guy better put up a fight all the way through the trial. Â If he quits, the dentist will get something called default judgement or summary judgement, and his financial life will be pretty much over. Â Sorry.
Sounds to me like he fully deserved the bad review.
suing a patient for a bad review will cost you $100,000/wk long before the review itself ever would. Â that said, we still have the freedom of speech, and a review is someone's opinion on their experience, whether you think its accurate or not.
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 @Alki_Ninja  @nobelprizeme i wasn't referring to how much the legal action would cost, but the cost for damage he is causing to his own reputation by suing.  hes going to lose more patients from these legal actions than he would from a single bad review.  as you said yourself- i wouldn't want to be your customer if you sold me a crappy product and you would sue me, in an attempt to make my life miserable, for writing a bad review online about it, even if i did know the case would be thrown out.
 @nobelprizeme Yeah, something is off here. Why would the dentist sue after the remedy (removal of the offending review) was attained? The only purpose it serves now is to publicize the fact that he's a bit of a jerk. The patient might have put things more diplomatically, but expressing surprise about suddenly receiving notice that you have 10 cavities can do that to a person. He's removed the review, don't punish him for the rest of his life about it.
"I had never had a cavity before I set food in his office," he said.
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What kind of food did he set in the dentist's office?
 @Koreanman012 Candy, apparently.
I'll bet that he will lose more business from being such a twisted panty......I would not go to him just because of this article. What a sissy. I suppose he will try to sue me now.......
He has nothing to worry about if he wrote 100% factual review like he claims. Â But I kinda feel suspicious because he removed his review as soon as the dentist threatened him with lawsuit. Â
 @JackBauer Not knowing the exact context of the phone call from this dentist, it may have been laced with threats and other bully tactics. Some people who arent use to taking a stand often react before thinking. In this case, he removed the opinion posting out of peer pressure instead of having time to think it through.
 @DarkRenegade  @JackBauer Quite possibly. Guys that pick drilling holes in people's mouths for a living don't mess around.
 @Jill Exactly.  I do the same thing to terrorists, and I don't mess around.
Nobody can fool Jack Bauer! Â Nobody!!
I'm amazed at what people give in to. Someone has a degree and ya just throw in the towel?
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Good grief! Stand up fer cryinoutloud!
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The sad thing is that there are a lot of dentists like this. Â My wife who had never had a cavity in her life went to a new dentist near Tacoma. Â They told her she had multiple cavities and needed to have thousands of dollars worth of work done. Â She left the office without making another appointment for any work and went to another dentist. Â the next dentist didn't find anything wrong. Â No cavities, not need for thousands of dollars worth of work. Â I wonder, what could explain such a thing.
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Since I didn't know so I reported the first dentist to our insurance carrier. Â
 @DeadRabitz Dentists attend expensive seminars in "Practice Enhancement" and how to sell patients expensive "cosmetic" treatments (which by the way tend to destroy healthy teeth.) A formoer colleague used to help sell these programs. Dentists will do unnecessary endodontics (>$1,500 / tooth) just so that they can sell expensive post-buildups and then expensive crowns - which will fail sooner than the original tooth would have. Dentists add up what a patient's dental insurance will pay, and they seek to take IT ALL every year.
 @DeadRabitz Yeah, it's interesting because it depends upon the office. I know one hygienist who was told to identify "problem" areas to hike up the bill. I would swear that my dentist, Dr. Sunwoo in Bellevue, has never done this and I've had one other dentist that I believe did, and another that I'm sure didn't. Sunwoo is very detail oriented and also pretty funny.
 @deadrabitz:Â
Unfortunately, insurance can do absolutely nthing.
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You should hvae reported the dentist to the dental board so a complaint is on file - if there is a pattern of problem behavior, they start looking into it.
 @LocalLady  @deadrabitz: Since my wife didn't have any work done, there wasn't much to report.  However, reporting to insurance companies does work.  Insurance doesn't want to pay for needed things much less needless work.
I am "very" against businesses that try to create slant so their company/business or services look better than they really are. I google new doctors, dentists, auto shops, restaurants before I lay out hard-earned money. Blocking critical reviews and leaving only good reviews is misleading and wrong.
 @chandler True story. Also, check if all their reviews were written on the same day, and all in the same tone and writing style. I avoid those places like the plague. Heh, see what I did there?