This case report is now 0 months old and may not represent current law.
Is a bad Google review a statement of fact or an opinion? Usually it’s a mix of both, and a High Court judgment handed down today shows how a court separates them. In a builder’s claim against an unhappy customer, the words you might expect to cause the trouble (“terrible”, “shoddy”, “extortionate”) were treated as opinion, while the plainer statements about what the customer had spent putting the work right, and a written promise to pay for it that hadn’t been kept, were treated as statements of fact.
The case is Paul Little Construction Ltd v Byrne [2026] EWHC 2577 (KB), decided by Mr Justice Eardley in the Media and Communications List. It isn’t a final decision, though; it was a trial of preliminary issues, which settles what the reviews meant and which parts were fact or opinion before anyone gets to whether they were true, whether they caused serious harm or what they’re worth. It’s also the second review case in three weeks, after Conroy v Stojek, which I wrote about in can I sue someone for leaving a bad review?, and the two are worth reading together.
The two reviews
The claimant is a company building homes in Devon and Cornwall. Mr Byrne and his wife hired it in April 2023 for work on their house in Plymouth, weren’t happy with how it went, and in 2024 he posted a one-star review on Google telling readers not to let the company anywhere near their building project. He said the work was terrible on almost every aspect, that the additional costs were extortionate, that the company had promised in writing to pay another contractor to correct its work and hadn’t done so, and that he would probably have to sue. Photos of the work were attached. In January 2025 he posted a second one-star review, with an even more emphatic headline, saying the workmanship was poor and that he’d spent thousands of pounds paying someone else to correct it.
Both reviews also mentioned a video of one of the company’s workmen urinating against the house. Neither side relied on that part, so the judge (who did watch the 30-second clip attached to the second review) said nothing more about it.
Which parts were opinion
The company argued that the headlines turned a complaint about one job into a general attack on its competence, while Mr Byrne’s barrister said they amounted to no more than a suggestion to think twice. The judge sided with the company on how far the headlines went (they were emphatic and went beyond “think twice”) but agreed with Mr Byrne that the wider criticism was presented as his opinion, based on his own experience and not, for example, on what other customers had said.
The descriptions of the work and the extra costs were opinion too. The judge thought the second review was closer to the line, because it had no photos of the work, but decided a reader would take “poor workmanship” from someone who had hired the builder for a particular job as that person’s own assessment. The words “This company attempted to build our extension” were enough to indicate what the opinion was based on, which is one of the conditions of the honest opinion defence under section 3 of the Defamation Act 2013, and the judge said that condition is not an exacting test.
Which parts were fact
Where the reviews moved from describing the work to saying what had happened since, they became statements of fact. That covered the claim that corrective work had been done at great cost and, in the first review, that the company had failed to honour a written promise to pay for it. Mr Byrne’s barrister accepted the spending was stated as fact but argued it was harmless, as it simply followed from the opinions about the work. The judge disagreed and found that those parts added substantially to the sting.
He did take some of the force out of the broken promise. Readers would understand the review was describing a situation that was still developing, in which the company might yet pay, and the suggestion that it wouldn’t pay without a court getting involved was Mr Byrne’s own assessment.
The honest opinion defence only helps with the opinion, which is protected if an honest person could have held it on the basis of facts that existed when the review went up. A statement of fact has to be proved substantially true under section 2, so Mr Byrne will need to show that he paid for corrective work and that the promise was made and not kept. He may well be able to (nothing in the judgment suggests otherwise), and the judge said only that the factual element may complicate the defence.
Online reviews and the threshold for defamation
Mr Byrne also argued that the reviews weren’t defamatory at all, because everyone knows reviews range from delighted to furious. The judge didn’t accept that at this stage. Domestic building work is intrusive, disruptive, expensive and stressful, and telling people not to hire a builder because of how one job went would tend to affect how potential customers treat it. He did say the point may carry more weight at trial, when the company has to show serious harm to its reputation under section 1, which for a company trading for profit means showing the reviews have caused, or are likely to cause, serious financial loss.
How it compares with Conroy v Stojek
The similarities are easy to see. Both were one-star Google reviews posted by a customer after a falling out over work and money, and in both the reviewer said it was just his opinion and the court found that part of it wasn’t. In both, the reviewer writing as a real former customer counted against him: in Conroy it made the review more believable, and here the judge pointed to the recommendation being based on first-hand knowledge.
There are bigger differences, though, as Conroy was about a review calling a solicitor “a fraudster”, which the reviewer accepted in cross-examination wasn’t true, and the claim was undefended, so the court was only assessing damages. The Byrne reviews are much milder; the builder’s original pleaded case said they accused it of dishonesty, its barrister dropped that, and the judge said he was right to. Mr Byrne is defending the claim, and nothing has been decided yet about truth, serious harm or damages. In Conroy the court inferred serious harm from the circumstances, partly because the review was one of only five, whereas here the page showed eleven reviews averaging 3.9 stars.
Costs and the judge’s closing remarks
The judge pointed the parties to the usual order after a trial of preliminary issues, which is costs in the case (so whoever gets their costs at the end will usually get these as well). He also strongly encouraged them to try mediation or some other form of ADR, and his closing paragraph is worth reading if you’re thinking about suing over a review. He said the court sees a steady trickle of claims like this, which can only be a tiny fraction of the bad reviews posted about businesses, so most businesses must manage unfair reviews without suing, for example by replying to rebut the criticism or put it in context. He was clear the claim wasn’t abusive, but found it somewhat dispiriting to see in the High Court, given the legal costs someone will end up paying.
If you’re writing or receiving a review
Plenty of business owners do both, reviewing their own suppliers as well as being reviewed by customers. If you’re writing one, the adjectives are less of a risk than the facts. Saying a job was poor or a price too high is opinion if a reader can see what it’s based on; saying you had to pay someone else thousands to put it right, or that a promise wasn’t kept, is something you may have to prove, so make sure you can.
If you’re on the receiving end, do the same exercise as after Conroy and separate the opinion you’ll have to live with from any statements of fact you can show are wrong. With a review like Mr Byrne’s most of it is opinion, and a calm public reply setting out your side may do more for you than a claim that has to get through a preliminary issues hearing before it even reaches trial. If a factual statement is untrue and you think it’s costing you work, keep the evidence of that loss from the start, because a company has to prove serious financial loss to win.
I don’t run defamation claims myself; those go to my Nexa colleagues who deal with defamation and social media claims, and building disputes to colleagues who handle contract disputes. I help owner-managed businesses with their contracts and terms, which is where a lot of these arguments over extras and remedial work start. Get in touch if you need some help.
Written by Steven Mather, a business solicitor acting on company sales and purchases. This is general information about the law, not legal advice on your situation. Law correct as at .
