Virginia-based architect Marcus Breitschmid was pretty annoyed when Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati posted on Instagram that Breitschmid had built a house that “distorted” Olgiati’s design. By making this statement to his 190,000 followers, many of whom were familiar with Breitschmid personally and/or professionally, Olgiati had essentially accused him of stealing and thereby caused severe damage to his reputation. At least, that’s what Breitschmid argued. The court did not agree, however, and dismissed the defamation claims Breitschmid had brought against Olgiati. According to the court, the accusation was merely a personal opinion and lacked sufficient defamatory sting to be actionable.
According to the facts of Olgiati v. Breitschmid pending in the Western District of Virginia, the two architects met in 2006 and have collaborated on several projects over the years, including co-publishing books and working on symposia and lectures. They eventually formed plans to work together on a house to be built in Riner, Virginia. Olgiati sent Breitschmid a “rudimentary set of initial design drawings for the house,” but their collaboration ended when the parties had a falling out. Breitschmid proceeded to build a house with a different architecture firm. Olgiati became aware of this and expressed his disapproval on Instagram, writing:
Markus Breitschmid together with local architects executes a distorted version of my design for the Manahoac House in Riner, Virginia that I do not approve.
Breitschmid acknowledged that the post did not accuse him of stealing or copyright infringement directly but argued that readers would likely interpret the statement that way.
Virginia law does recognize a claim for defamation by implication. Even if a statement does not expressly allege a false and defamatory accusation about another person, if the words are designed and intended by the defendant to imply a defamatory meaning and if the statements reasonably convey that defamatory implication to the reader, defamation liability can arise. That wasn’t the case here, however. The court noted that when examining the language at issue, the “meaning of the alleged defamatory language cannot, by innuendo, be extended beyond its ordinary and common acceptation.” (Quoting Webb v. Virginian-Pilot Media Companies, LLC, 752 S.E.2d 808, 811 (Va. 2014)). In other words, the question is: how would a reasonable reader interpret the statement in the particular context in which it was made?
In the court’s view, a reasonable, objective reader would have interpreted the Instagram post as a mere expression of opinion. “Whether any design, building, or other artistic creation is a distorted, improved, degraded, or enhanced version of another design, building, or artistic creation is generally understood as a subjective statement, based on the opinion of the speaker,” the court wrote. The court rejected Breitschmid’s argument that a jury could compare the original design to the design of the house actually built and conclude that the house was not, in fact, a “distorted version” of the original design. The court reasoned that jurors could agree or disagree on whether that was the case; it’s not something that could be definitively proven. As such, the statement was one of opinion and therefore not actionable.
To interpret the Instagram post as an accusation of theft or copyright infringement would be tantamount to extending the meaning of the words beyond how they were intended to be used and how reasonable readers would interpret them. The Virginia Supreme Court held in Webb that such an interpretation would be improper.
Even if the statement could be interpreted as an assertion of fact, the court continued, it lacked sufficient sting to be considered defamatory. Even if the takeaway for readers was that Breitschmid changed Olgiati’s design and then built a house that Olgiati didn’t like, that’s not enough to render Breitschmid “infamous, odious, or ridiculous” as the law requires.