Posted on 08/02/2017 10:28:16 AM PDT by nickcarraway
An autumn affair at the Petroleum Club in downtown Dallas, the union of a full-time beauty blogger and the love of her life, appeared to be a gorgeous thing — marred by one misfortune.
Three months after the ceremony, in front of a local television crew, Andrew and Neely Moldovan showed off a box of empty picture frames.
Their photographer was withholding the images, they told NBC affiliate KXAS in January 2015, and was demanding an extra $150 when they’d already paid thousands.
“It’s heartbreaking, because, you know, these are our memories,” Neely Moldovan said.
And many agreed.
“Wedding photographer holds couple’s pictures hostage,” blared the Daily Mail a few days later.
The Moldovans’ sympathizers descended on photographer Andrea Polito’s review pages, calling her a scam artist, or worse.
Her reputation was ruined, her business dried up and she closed her studio.
And then the story changed.
Polito sued the Moldovans, claiming all they ever had to do to get their glossies was fill out a form, choose options for their wedding album and pay a small charge they had long known about.
The photographer showed the court emails in which she and her employees tried to appease the couple — even as the Moldovans were calling reporters, whipping up a furor on social media and plugging their newfound fame to fans of Neely Moldovan’s beauty blog, Polito said.
On Friday, a jury in Dallas decided that the tale of the ransomed wedding photos was not heartbreaking, and not even true.
In fact, the jurors concluded, the accusations amounted to malicious defamation, for which the Moldovans should pay the photographer more than $1 million in damages.
The Moldovans haven’t commented on the verdict, which they can still challenge. Neely Moldovan did not mention it to her thousands of followers
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In business all you have is your reputation. Once that is trashed your business is kaput. As hers was.
Freedom of speech does not mean you can knowing lie about someone's actions. When you do they can legally come after you for damages.
I have several small businesses and I have had a couple of customers who have simply thought they could get away with lying through their teeth about something. It has never gotten to a court case but yes I would take it that far.
If you don't like my product, fine.
If you think it did not work, ok.
If it got lost in the mail, it happens.
You say I sent you cyanide that nearly killed you, I'll see you in court.
did read it. I understand her business dried up, but that was ultimately over her customer telling people she was dissatisfied online. Are people not allowed to complain, even if it’s in a less-than-tactful or wrong-headed manner? If I go online and complain about my local diner’s pork chops tasting like garbage, and their business goes under because my rant went viral, should I be liable?
Not if true.. If it is a lie then yes..
And a loss of business. This photog easily booked 100 weddings per year but after this only got 2 in one year and then nothing. Had to close down. The bride waged an online war against this photographer ... not just saying mean things.
Whoopsie!
It seems to me that the television station that aired their rants without fact checking should be getting them some heapin helpin of that damage judgement.
The power to influence people is under the control of these television people, and without the use of their vehicle to communicate with the public, I wouldn't think much would have been made of it.
If they were bitching about a $125.00 fee, I doubt they have money to pay any judgement, making the whole thing a waste of the Court's time.
I used to do the occasional wedding when I was in photography school. It didn’t take long for me to realize this was not going to be my specialty.
When you sign a contract to do X-number of pictures, what kinds of poses, etc., you don’t count on everybody’s relatives wanting a picture taken - gratus, of course - and others who have no clue squeezing in and shooting their dime store cameras at the same time you are trying to do your job, getting in the way, blasting their flashbulbs right into your lens until all you want to do is get the heck out of there.
No, thanks. I haven’t done a wedding in 30 years and I don’t miss it one bit.
No, because an expression of opinion is protected by the First Amendment. The defendants here lied about a statement of fact, not opinion-- they claimed the photographer was withholding photos when they had already paid for them, which wasn't true.
I won’t do wedding photography at all.
A friend of mine’s wife does a lot of small weddings and the like. Way too much labor for a tiny bit of money to me and I’m not a super high end person.
I gave her some advice on workflow and lighting. It seemed to help her.
Video production to me is a lot easier, especially nowadays.
I tried to get in wedding video, even as a second but got nowhere. No wedding experience was the usual response.
A decade and change of broadcast TV production in field and studio environments didn’t seem to matter.
I forgot what our photographer charged us but that was 2002.
The guy used medium format film cameras and did beautiful work.
He and his wife were quite successful up until a few years ago. The wun’s economy finally had them close their doors and take other jobs.
I’m not worthy of taking the lenscaps off his cameras. I am fairly good most of the time and really good some others. His work was always excellent.
Depends on if you actually ate the pork chops. That’s the crux of this one, they knew about the fee before hand, failed to pay it and also failed to select the prints they wanted, then complained they hadn’t gotten their photos. That’s liable.
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