Psychology Expert’s Testimony on Consumer Perceptions of Online Posts Excluded
Posted on September 4, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
This case arises out of an ongoing dispute between Plaintiffs LoanStreet, Inc. (“LoanStreet”) and LoanStreet CEO Ian Lampl (“Lampl,” and together with LoanStreet, “Plaintiffs”) and a former employee, Defendant Wyatt Troia (“Troia”).
LoanStreet, a online platform which provides services to help clients share, manage, and originate loans, hired Troia to work as a software engineer in February 2019. In June 2020, LoanStreet terminated his employment. Troia subsequently posted disparaging statements about LoanStreet, Lampl, and other LoanStreet employees on various websites, including Glassdoor.com and Reddit.com.
Troia also purchased advertisements on Google that would appear when users searched the following terms or phrases: “LoanStreet”; “Loan Street”; “LoanStreet Glassdoor”; “LoanStreet careers”; “LoanStreet engineering”; “LoanStreet software engineering”; “What it’s like to work at LoanStreet”; and “LoanStreet Jobs.” Each of Troia’s Google advertisements began with the heading: “LoanStreet horror story” and linked to a Reddit post he had made, titled: “Name and Shame: LoanStreet (NY) cheated me out of equity.”
Plaintiffs brought suit against Troia, asserting claims for breach of contract, defamation and unfair competition.
Troia filed a motion to exclude Plaintiffs’ proposed expert, Allen Adamson while Plaintiffs filed a motion to exclude Troia’s proposed experts, Deepak Sabiki and Lamarcus Bolton.
Branding Expert Witness
Allen P. Adamson is a co-founder and managing partner of Metaforce, a marketing and brand consultancy, and he is an Adjunct Professor and guest lecturer at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his B.S. from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and his MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Forensic Accounting Expert Witness
Deepak Sabiki is a principal at Sabiki Consulting LLC, and he serves as a consulting and testifying expert in “forensic accounting, compliance, and litigation matters.” Sabiki received his B.S. in Finance and Economic Theory Analysis from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Psychology Expert Witness
Dr. Lamarcus R. Bolton is a Principal at Insightful Holdings, a research firm based in Los Angeles, California. He attended St. Louis University, where he received his B.A. in Psychology and his M.S. and PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
Discussion by the Court
a. Troia’s Daubert Motion
Troia filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs’ proposed expert, Allen Adamson.
In his thirty-six-page report, Adamson evaluated the damage sustained to LoanStreet’s brand as a result of Defendant’s defamatory statements, focusing on the impact of his advertisements and posts on the company’s brand, and specifically on its ability to recruit software engineers and other prospective employees, attract and retain investors, and appeal to customers. Adamson further assessed the reputational damage sustained by Lampl’s “personal brand” due to Defendant’s statements.
He ultimately determined that LoanStreet would need to spend a total of $3,700,000 over at least two years to repair its reputation with software engineers, prospective customers, and investors, and that Lampl would be required to spend between $750,000 and $2,500,000 over the next three to five years in order to adequately restore his reputation and safeguard his future career prospects.
Troia claimed that Adamson’s testimony should be excluded as “irrelevant, unreliable, and prejudicial” and raised a variety of concerns centering primarily upon the assertion that Adamson’s report did not adequately establish causation by isolating the harm caused by Defendant’s defamatory statements.
He also asserted that Adamson’s damages calculation impermissibly accounts for the republication of Defendant’s defamatory statements by third parties, which Troia contended is speculative and resulted in an “artificially inflated” damages amount.
As Plaintiffs noted, broad general damages are permitted in cases involving defamation per se, and Adamson’s testimony is thus squarely relevant to those claims.
The Court held that Troia’s remaining concerns regarding Adamson’s report and proposed testimony primarily concerned the weight of his testimony, rather than its admissibility, and are best addressed on cross examination.
b. Plaintiffs’ Daubert Motion
i. Deepak Sabiki
Sabiki reviewed Adamson’s expert report and, after reviewing additional documents in this case, issued a ten-page rebuttal report in which he concluded that Adamson’s report is “speculative and not reliable, because it fails to tie the wrongful acts of Troia to the economic harm that LoanStreet and Lampl allegedly suffered.”
Plaintiffs contended that Sabiki’s report should be precluded because: (i) he has no expertise in branding and reputational harm or repair; (ii) he did not perform his own analysis or proffer a contrary damages calculation; and (iii) his proposed testimony presents arguments that counsel could make equally well without a witness.
As an experienced consulting and testifying expert in litigation and forensic accounting with a degree in finance and economic theory analysis, the Court held that Sabiki is qualified to testify as a rebuttal expert regarding Adamson’s analysis of the economic damages sustained by Plaintiffs as a result of Defendant’s defamatory posts. Moreover, Defendant clarified that Sabiki is testifying solely as a rebuttal expert.
Although Plaintiffs contended that Sabiki’s analysis consisted of observations that “can be observed readily by jurors and/or brought out in cross examination without benefitting from any aid by an expert,” they have not raised sufficient concerns regarding Sabiki’s qualifications or the reliability and relevance of his testimony. On the contrary, Sabiki’s opinion raised questions regarding Adamson’s analysis and methodologies, centering primarily on his failure to perform an economic causation analysis and a comparative damages analysis, as well as the data and assumptions underlying Adamson’s report. Although Plaintiffs may disagree with Sabiki’s conclusions, the Court held that those disagreements are best addressed on cross-examination.
ii. Dr. Lamarcus Bolton
Bolton conducted two surveys intended to “analyze public perceptions of the Defendant’s online statements regarding” LoanStreet and “gauge how these perceptions influenced potential employees’ and potential customers’ decisions to work for or engage in business with LoanStreet.”
In his 137-page report, Bolton concluded, inter alia, that the survey results suggested that “the vast majority of the readers” of Troia’s posts “did not think the posts accused LoanStreet of breaking the law when it withheld equity compensation from Troia.”
The primary issue with Bolton’s survey and report, as Plaintiffs noted, is its focus on whether respondents believed that Defendant had accused Plaintiffs of “breaking the law.” The use of this phrase appeared to be designed to determine whether the survey respondents believed defendant’s posts conveyed defamatory meaning. However, “breaking the law” carries an indisputably criminal connotation, and its use is entirely inappropriate in a survey carried out to assist in the determination of damages owed in a civil litigation.
Further, the Court agreed with Plaintiffs that both surveys impermissibly attempted to relitigate the question of liability and Defendant’s intent in crafting his posts by asking whether it “is possible” that the author of the posts “did not intend to claim LoanStreet broke the law” or was “motivated . . . by a desire to protect fellow workers” and asking whether the author’s post was “useful to public debate about workers’ rights.” Moreover, the fact that Bolton’s survey examining Defendant’s Reddit post did not include all the defamatory statements contained in the original post rendered that survey unusable.
Additionally, both surveys are less reliable because they failed to exclude survey respondents with prior knowledge of Defendant’s posts regarding Plaintiffs or who had pre-existing perceptions regarding LoanStreet.
Held
- The Court denied Troia’s motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs’ expert Allen Adamson.
- The Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion to exclude the testimony of Troia’s experts with respect to Deepak Sabiki but granted it with respect to Dr. Lamarcus Bolton.
Key Takeaway:
While each methodological flaw, standing alone, may not mandate exclusion, the cumulative effect of the methodological flaws so diminishes the reliability and probative value of the survey that its exclusion is warranted under Rules 403 and 702.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Loanstreet Inc. Et Al V. Troia |
| Docket Number: | 1:21cv6166 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, New York Southern |
| Order Date; | September 03, 2025 |
