• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 3, 2011

A federal appellate court has sided with Google in a lawsuit by a married couple about a bad review of their roofing and construction businesses.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said this week that Google was immune from liability for the review, which appeared on Places and was authored by an anonymous user. That ruling upheld a decision issued last year by U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in the Northern District of California.

“The district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' action ... because plaintiffs seek to impose liability on Google for content created by a third party,” the appellate court wrote,

The case dates to last May, when Gary Black, who owns Cal Bay Construction, and his wife, Holli Beam-Black, who owns the roofing company Castle Roofing, sued the search giant. They said that an anonymous user defamed them in a post about a leaky roof.

“This company says it will fix my roof but all I get are excuses,” the user wrote in a post that appeared on Google Places, according to court documents filed by the couple. They indicated in their complaint -- filed without an attorney -- that the reason they filed suit was to “make the Internet a safer place for professionals and businesses.”

Google moved to dismiss the case on the ground that the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes Web sites for libel claims that stem from users' comments.

Wilken agreed and dismissed the lawsuit in August of 2010. “A fair reading of plaintiffs’ complaint demonstrates that they seek to impose liability on defendant for content created by an anonymous third party,” Wilkin wrote. “Based on these allegations, defendant is immune from their suit.”