Judge Paul Crotty
Plaintiff Lee went to defendant dental office to treat a toothache. Defendants required Lee to sign a confidentiality agreement before providing treatment, precluding him from posting comments about them and assigning to them all copyrights in those comments. Only after Lee signed the agreement did the defendant dentist treat his infected tooth. After Lee paid his bill, he tried to get the defendants to forward his paperwork to his insurer for reimbursement but they never did so and refused to provide Lee with a copy of his dental records so he could submit the claim himself. He then recounted his negative experience with the defendants on several websites, including Yelp. Defendants threatened him with an action for breach of contract, defamation, and copyright infringement. Lee sought a declaration that the agreement is void for lack of consideration and is unconscionable, and the defendants argued that no actual controversy exists. The court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that they created the controversy by attempting to enforce the agreement, which they extracted as a condition for getting dental treatment.
