PITTSBURGH – A Pittsburgh attorney has sued Google, in claiming that the top search engine has maintained and refused to take down an unfavorable review of his legal services that he argues is fraudulent and from someone who doesn't actually exist.
Kerry Lewis filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 21 versus Google, Inc., also of Pittsburgh and Alphabet, Inc., of Mountain View, Calif.
“Defendant Google has published a ‘review’ by a ‘Lolo Mosby’ in which she reports a horrible experience interacting with plaintiff in his professional capacity. Her review describes plaintiff as ‘failing to show up for a hearing’ and claims plaintiff ‘ruined her life,” the suit states.
“Plaintiff has advised defendants that the review is a fraud, that plaintiff has never had a client named ‘Lolo Mosby,' there is no court record or other document which would support Mosby’s claim that plaintiff represented her and despite plaintiff’s request to defendants to investigate this fraud, defendants have refused to take any action and continue to maintain and disseminate the fake review in connection with Internet searches of the plaintiff conducted on its platform.”
Despite requesting the review be removed numerous times over the last year, Lewis says the defendants have refused to do so again and again.
“Defendants’ conduct is willful, wanton and wrongful in this it has systematically refused to respond to the plaintiff’s requests, objections and pleas regarding the verifiable means at defendants’ disposal to confirm that both ‘Lolo Mosby’ and the review she posted are a fraud. Further, there are no documents, court records or other documents which in any way suggest the plaintiff has ever represented the person identified as ‘Lolo Mosby,' the alleged author of the bogus review,” per the suit.
“The defendants’ failure to conduct an investigation and remove the fraudulent review has caused damage to plaintiff’s professional reputation and resulted in great injury to plaintiff’s good name, credit and reputation, all of which has been to his great financial loss and damage.”
For counts of defamation, the plaintiff is seeking damages, jointly and severally, in a sum in excess of the arbitration limits of the Court, plus a trial by jury.
The plaintiff is representing himself.
The defendants have not yet secured legal counsel.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-20-010995
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com