A dentist who used a controversial contract to take "ownership" of her patient's reviews has been slapped with a court order to pay $4,766.

It's a not-entirely-satisfying end to a legal battle that began in 2011, when Dr. Stacy Makhnevich was sued by Robert Lee, a patient who challenged the arrangement. A company called Medical Justice created the contracts, which granted Makhnevich copyright for any potential patient reviews.

Medical Justice refused to defend the lawsuit, saying it was "retiring" that contract. Then Makhnevich literally made a run for it. Her own lawyers were unable to contact her, and she's been nowhere to be found since 2013.

The short default order, first published by GigaOm , makes it clear that Lee's comments are a "non-infringing fair use." It goes on to say the agreement itself is illegal under New York law and violates dental ethics. The damages are only for breach of contract. They will presumably be tough to collect, since no one knows where Makhnevich is.

Even though this was a default judgment, getting a slam-dunk decision in a case where the defendant actually ran away may send a message.

"When people try to use these cheap maneuvers to try to prevent their customers from telling their side of what happened, the price you pay for that is going out of business," said Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen, who took Lee's case. "It's not a precedent in the judicial sense, but that's an important lesson."

Streisand effect "gone bonkers"

In 2011, Lee signed Makhnevich's forms without thinking about it, desperate to get rid of his toothache.

"I couldn't think of any way a dentist would want to screw me over, so I went ahead and signed it," he told Ars at the time.

Here's how he got screwed: Makhnevich performed two relatively simple procedures and then vastly overcharged him. Lee vented about his predicament in a blistering one-star Yelp review.

“Avoid at all cost!” he wrote. "Scamming their customers! Overcharged me by about $4000 for what should have been only a couple-hundred dollar procedure."

That led to Makhnevich's office sending a takedown request to Yelp and other sites under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. She literally claimed she "owned" Lee's negative statements. Her office also sent Lee invoices saying he was being charged $100 for every day the reviews remained online.

It was a bridge too far. Free-speech advocates had been denouncing the Medical Justice contract for some time. Lee got in touch with Levy at Public Citizen, who relished the opportunity to challenge the Medical Justice "we own your reviews" contract. With Levy's help, Lee filed suit, claiming the contract violated New York consumer protection laws, and that his posts were protected as "fair use."

By the middle of 2013, the case already seemed to be headed towards default. Makhnevich wasn't showing up, and there was no sign online that she was promoting her dentistry business.

“It’s quite possible that the consequence of her having this contract is that she had to give up her dental practice,” Levy told Ars that year. “It’s the Streisand effect gone bonkers.”