Key Points

  • The Appellate Division, Second Department, unanimously reversed a Nassau County Supreme Court order and dismissed attorney Akiva Shapiro's amended defamation complaint against Sheryl Kushnick-Carr.
  • The court held that a review posted on a public Google business profile is a communication in a public forum, and that a licensed attorney's professional competence is an issue of public interest under Civil Rights Law § 76-a.
  • The court held that the review's statements, including 'A Tinker of many types of law . . . A MASTER OF NONE!', were nonactionable pure opinion, so Shapiro failed to show a substantial basis in law for his claim.
  • The court granted Kushnick-Carr's request for attorneys' fees and costs under Civil Rights Law § 70-a(1)(a) and remitted the case to Nassau County Supreme Court to set the amount.

A New York appeals court has thrown out an attorney's defamation lawsuit seeking at least $500,000 over a Google review that called him "A Tinker of many types of law . . . A MASTER OF NONE!" The court ruled that the post was protected opinion and that the reviewer is entitled to have her legal fees paid under the state's anti-SLAPP law.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, in an unsigned decision and order issued Oct. 7, reversed a Nassau County Supreme Court ruling that had kept alive the suit brought by attorney Akiva Shapiro against Sheryl Kushnick-Carr. The four-justice panel, made up of Justice Colleen D. Duffy, presiding, and Justices Linda Christopher, Carl J. Landicino and Susan Quirk, was unanimous.

The decision applies New York's 2020 amendments to its law against strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits, to a consumer's online review of a lawyer. The panel held that a Google business profile is a public forum and that a licensed attorney's professional competence is a matter of public interest. That finding put the burden on Shapiro to justify his claim, and because he could not, the reviewer is now owed attorneys' fees and costs.

According to the decision, Kushnick-Carr posted the review on a public Google profile for Shapiro's law firm. It read: "Don's Not Use Him!! He is what gives bad names to attorneys. . . . A Tinker of many types of law . . . A MASTER OF NONE!" Shapiro sued for defamation and later filed an amended complaint seeking damages of not less than $500,000 and an order directing removal of the review.

Kushnick-Carr moved to dismiss the amended complaint and sought attorneys' fees and costs, arguing that the case was a SLAPP suit. Shapiro opposed. In an order dated Jan. 17, 2025, Justice Felice J. Muraca of Nassau County Supreme Court denied those parts of the motion, and Kushnick-Carr appealed.

Under the amended statute, a SLAPP suit includes an action based on "any communication in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest." The law provides that "public interest" "shall be construed broadly, and shall mean any subject other than a purely private matter," the panel noted.

"Contrary to the Supreme Court's determination," the panel held, Kushnick-Carr met her initial burden of showing the case fell within the statute. Citing earlier Appellate Division decisions in Biagini Realty v. Brightman and VIP Pet Grooming Studio Inc. v. Sproule, the court said Google is "an online platform that constitutes a public forum within the meaning of the statute."

The panel wrote that the review's subject was "the professional competence of a licensed attorney operating a law firm open to the public, which is not a purely private matter." It added that the review "was not directed to a limited, private audience, but rather, was posted on a publicly accessible Google business profile visible to any member of the public searching for the plaintiff's law firm."

Once a defendant makes that showing, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the claims have a "substantial basis in law." Because falsity is an element of defamation, the court said, only factual assertions can support such a claim, and "an expression of pure opinion is not actionable, no matter how vituperative or unreasonable it may be."

The court also explained the line between pure opinion and "mixed opinion," a statement of opinion that is actionable because readers would infer the speaker knows undisclosed facts damaging to the target. Courts weigh whether the language has a precise, readily understood meaning, whether it can be proven true or false, and whether its context signals that it is opinion.

Shapiro failed that test, the panel held, "because the defendant's statements in her Google review of the plaintiff and his law firm unmistakably constitute nonactionable pure opinion." The court wrote that the "master of none" line "is a variation of the familiar idiom, 'jack of all trades, master of none,' a figure of speech that is subjective and imprecise on its face."

The phrase "what gives bad names to attorneys," the panel wrote, "is a vague expression of disapproval that does not communicate any specific factual assertion about the plaintiff to a reasonable reader."

The setting reinforced that reading, according to the decision. The review appeared on "a consumer-facing review platform, and was written in a style associated with online hyperbole, including all capital letters, multiple exclamation points, ellipses, and typographical errors," the court wrote.

Nor was the post an actionable mixed opinion, the panel held, because it "does not accuse the plaintiff of any specific crime, wrongful act, or professional misconduct," and nothing in it suggested Kushnick-Carr knew undisclosed facts harmful to Shapiro.

The fee ruling followed from the same analysis. Under the statute, the panel wrote, fees and costs "shall be awarded" to a SLAPP defendant on a showing that the suit "was commenced or continued without a substantial basis in fact and law and could not be supported by a substantial argument for the extension, modification or reversal of existing law." The panel held that the trial court should have granted both dismissal and the fee request, and said the parties' remaining arguments either lacked merit or did not need to be reached.

Kushnick-Carr was represented by The Law Office of Matt Bryant, P.C., of Mineola, New York. Shapiro, of Akiva Shapiro Law, PLLC, in Old Bethpage, New York, represented himself.

The appeals court awarded Kushnick-Carr the costs of the appeal and sent the case back to Nassau County Supreme Court to determine the amount of attorneys' fees and costs she will receive. The decision, reported as 2026 NY Slip Op 05822, is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.