What the butler saw goes to court

A WAR of words between a Cape Town guest-house owner and a butler academy in the city is about to continue in court.

Christine von Ulmenstein, who owns a guest house in Camps Bay, is being sued for R500 000 by the South Africa Butler Academy for defamation.

Von Ulmenstein hired an academy graduate, whom she described as unprofessional. She blamed the academy for the person’s alleged shortcomings.

“The SA Butler Academy grossly misleads its students and hospitality industry clients,” she wrote on her blog in February 2013.

She bestowed her own “sour service award” on the academy.

Von Ulmenstein said the academy was “dishonourable” and “unprofessional” in its training of butlers.

She said she had complained about the graduate to Adriaan Coetzer, the academy’s recruitment head.

Coetzer, according to Von Ulmenstein, promised to have a “chat” with the graduate.

But Coetzer’s e-mail response, said Von Ulmenstein, “was that of a changed person”.

She said he made “wild unproven allegations” and disputed any weaknesses of the graduate.

Von Ulmenstein said: “The SA Butler Academy website (and its Facebook page) is riddled with typing errors, and is overwritten with extravagant, exaggerated claims.”

She said that students were being “taken for a ride” by the academy, which charged R19 500 for an eight-week course. She said the time was not long enough to teach the “full theoretical spectrum of hospitality”.

In a summons issued last month, the academy said Von Ulmenstein’s writing had been widely read on various platforms, including Facebook.

“The article is further listed, on the internet as the third most popular top 10 result (as at November 30 2016) on the most commonly used search engine known as Google,” it says in court papers.

“As a result of the defamation, and having regard to the [academy’s] business, the significance of its reputation, the seriousness of the allegations and the seriousness and likely impact the allegations had, and will continue to have, [the academy] has been damaged in its reputation, has suffered damages and will continue to suffer damages, in the amount of approximately R500 000.”

This week Von Ulmenstein said: “We are most definitely SUED: Guest-house owner Christine von Ulmenstein defending the court action.”

Cape Town attorney William Booth said lawsuits linked to social media posts were on the rise. People were too quick to make comments about people and businesses without proof.

“We all have to be careful and investigate facts properly before posting things on social media,” Booth said.