Paul Little Construction Limited v Michael Byrne
| Court | High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division, Media and Communications List |
| Judge | Mr Justice Eardley |
| Judgment | 12 October 2026 |
| Hearing | 5 October 2026 |
| Jurisdiction | England and Wales |
| Claimant | Paul Little Construction Limited |
| Defendant | Michael Byrne |
| Case reference | KB-2025-002557 |
| Outcome | Preliminary issues decided: both reviews defamatory at common law, each containing opinion and fact; serious harm and defences left for trial |
Summary
A builder working in Devon and Cornwall sued a Plymouth homeowner for libel over two one-star Google reviews. At a trial of preliminary issues, Mr Justice Eardley decided what each review meant, which parts were opinion and which were fact, and whether each was defamatory at common law.
The builder said the reviews attacked its competence generally and stated facts about corrective costs and a broken promise. The homeowner said everything defamatory was his opinion of his own job. The judge held both reviews defamatory. The verdict on the work was opinion with its basis indicated; the corrective work at great cost and the unhonoured promise were fact. Serious harm, serious financial loss and the defences remain for trial.
Background and facts
In April 2023 the defendant and his wife engaged the claimant to carry out work on their house in Plymouth. Sometime before 9 August 2024 he posted the first review: one star, a capitalised headline telling readers not to let the company near their building project, complaints of terrible work and extortionate additional costs, and a written promise to pay another contractor for corrective work that had not been honoured. Photographs and short videos of building work sat beneath it.
The second review, posted in January 2025, repeated the headline with added emphasis and said he had spent thousands of pounds paying someone else to correct the work. A further allegation in both reviews, about an employee's conduct on the property, was relied on by neither party.
The issue
For each review the court had to decide the single natural and ordinary meaning; whether it was or included opinion; if so, whether it indicated the basis of the opinion, which section 3(3) requires of a defendant relying on honest opinion under the Defamation Act 2013; and whether it was defamatory at common law.
The claimant accepted that terrible, shoddy and extortionate were opinion, but said the corrective costs and the broken promise were fact and the headlines widened the attack to the company as a whole. Its new meanings, advanced in its skeleton argument, left out the allegations of dishonesty in its pleaded case. It said the second review, with no images of the work, did not indicate the basis of its opinion.
The defendant said the reviews were confined to his own dealings and the headlines only told readers to think twice. He accepted that the statements about spending on corrective work were factual but said they could not be defamatory, and that readers know businesses online attract reviews across the whole range from satisfied to dissatisfied.
The decision
On meaning, the headline took each review beyond the defendant's own job to a general allegation of incompetence and unreliability. That wider attack was presented as opinion rooted in the defendant's own experience.
The judge did not accept the defendant's case that all the defamatory imputations came from the parts that were opinion. Each review opened with opinion about the work and then moved into fact.
These parts add substantially to the sting of the review.Mr Justice Eardley, paragraph 33
The promise allegation was pitched lower than the claimant wanted. Readers would see a developing situation, and the prediction that court action would be needed was the defendant's own assessment.
On the second review, poor workmanship was closer to the line because no images of the work were shown, but the judge held it opinion, and the words saying the company had attempted to build the extension were enough to indicate its basis.
I can take judicial notice of the fact that domestic building work is often intrusive, disruptive, expensive, and a cause of great stress for the household concerned.Mr Justice Eardley, paragraph 34
Recognisable opinion, and the range of views found in online reviews, did not remove the tendency to cause substantial reputational harm. The judge said those points may count for more at trial, on the statutory tests of serious harm and serious financial loss.
This factual element may well complicate the defence of this claim, but that cannot be a reason for me to depart from my task of determining how the review would strike the reasonable reader.Mr Justice Eardley, paragraph 38
He noted that costs in the case is the usual order after a trial of this kind, and strongly encouraged mediation or other alternative dispute resolution.
Practical implications
A defects dispute with a domestic client can reach the King's Bench Division through a single review. The exposure here came from the facts the homeowner chose to state: remedial costs paid out and a written promise not kept. Honest opinion protects opinion only.
Nor is this a green light for builders to sue. The judge observed that most businesses answer reviews they think unfair with a reply that rebuts them or puts them in context, and this claim must still clear serious harm and serious financial loss.
Practice points
- Clients writing a review: keep the criticism to your opinion of the work and say which job it concerns. Do not state remedial costs, broken promises or the course of a dispute as fact unless you can prove them.
- A capitalised headline warning other customers away can turn a complaint about one job into an allegation about the whole business.
- Contractors: a written promise to pay for another firm's corrective work will be quoted back at you, in correspondence, in a claim and online. Close it out or withdraw it in clear terms.
- A pleaded meaning that alleges dishonesty can be abandoned before the preliminary issues are tried. The court let the claimant put forward less serious meanings because the defendant suffered no prejudice.
- Before issuing a libel claim over a review, weigh a public reply and ADR against High Court costs. After a trial of preliminary issues like this one, costs in the case is the usual order.