Q: A possible case of extortion and defamation?
I had a former client that never paid on time. She would pay in weird increments way after the due date. Moreover, she would praise us when we helped her daughter accomplish high standards. Yet, she hardly ever picked up and dropped off her child on time. I had to cancel a few, but not many sessions due to family emergencies my grandfather was gravely ill, but they were always made up. She even contacted me off of the clock and I assisted her daughter for numerous hours at a time. In turn, when I decided to cancel her contract, she began to grow belligerent. Originally, I was going to refund her for the last week of that month, but she had overdue fees that were never reconciled. This is when she resorted to report my company to DCBA for mediation and wanted a said amount of money to go away and remove her heinous Yelp! review. If not, she threatened a class action over money she did not rightfully deserve. Her excuse was though I paid late, you still got paid.
A: It's possible. Defamation is a false statement of fact. Negative opinions are not defamation. It depends what she said and how it compares to the truth.
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