These videos are a collection of TV news stories I found online covering the Prestigious Pets lawsuits. These videos are arranged in chronological order.
“Yelp Review Lands Couple in Court”, CBS-DFW (February 17, 2016)
“Business Sues Dallas Couple Over Negative Yelp Review”, CBS This Morning (February 19, 2016)
“Texas Couple Facing Lawsuit After Posting Review on Yelp”, ABC News (February 20, 2016)
“Sued for Complaining”, CBS-DFW Promo (May 4, 2016)
“Yelp Review Could Cost Couple $1 Million”, CBS-DFW in Washington DC (May 4, 2016)
“Yelp Review Could Cost Couple $1 Million”, CBS-DFW Story (May 4, 2016)
It is important to note that, Attorney Paul Alan Levy wrote a lengthy 9-page letter on April 11, 2016 to Bill Richmond, (Prestigious Pets’ and Kalle McWhorter’s attorney) warning and urging them to consider settling the case as Levy felt that to move the case to full conclusion was ill-advised and would not serve Richmond’s clients well. The reason why Levy felt that the plaintiffs should settle is that they were a small business and would not likely be able to sustain a court judgment of such magnitude against them and be forced into bankruptcy.
From Paul Alan Levy’s letter to Bill Richmond, I have republished the excerpts from the opening and conclusion of his lengthy 9-page letter. In between the opening and conclusion, are four major lengthy discussion topics, in which Levy goes into great detail, explanation, and citation. (Emphasis is mine.)
Dear Bill:
It is unfortunate that your clients have sought to further chill the Duchouquettes’ free speech by upping the ante, transforming their former pro se complaint in the Texas Justice Court into a complaint in District Court seeking up to a million dollars in damages. However, Public Citizen is ready to help the Duchouquettes stand up to this bullying.
My purpose in writing this letter is to give your clients one last chance to dismiss their District Court complaint and to accept responsibility for the costs that their Justice Court complaint imposed on the Duchouquettes, before we file an anti-SLAPP motion under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (“TCPA”) in District Court as well as the counterclaims that we describe below. Our clients recognize that your clients are a small business and its owner, and it is not the Duchouquettes’ goal to put them out of business-just to rid themselves of this suit and recover the attorneys’ fees they have been billed to defend it so far. Therefore, we hope that we’ll be able to resolve the matter amicably before our next court filing and the press attention that is likely to accompany it.
To explain our position and why your clients may wish to settle the matter, I will lay out the legal landscape as I see it in some detail, in the hope that it helps you drive home to your clients some of the risks they face in proceeding further.
The Newly Identified Plaintiff, Kalle McWhorter, Has No Viable Claims (Argument, rationale, and case citation follows…)
The New Complaint Does Not Present Defamation Claims That Would Withstand a Motion to Dismiss Under the TCPA (Lengthy argument, rationale, and case citation follows…)
The Claims Under the Nondisparagement Clause Are Also Subject to Dismissal under the TCPA (Lengthy argument, rationale, and case citation follows…)
Your Clients Have Exposed Themselves to Counterclaims (Argument, rationale, and case citation follows…)
Appeal of JP Denial of Anti-SLAPP Motion
Conclusion We urge your clients to consider carefully whether it is in their interest to proceed any further with their litigation against Robert and Michelle Duchouquette. Two weeks ago, defendants’ counsel Alex More told you that so long as Prestigious Pets was willing to dismiss its claims and make the Duchouquettes whole for the attorney fees that they owed to their private counsel as provided by section 27.009(a), defendants would be willing to waive their claim for deterrence damages under section 27.009(b ). Writing this letter and otherwise preparing to defend the lawsuit you have now filed in the District Court has implicated additional fees. We fully recognize that your client operate a small business, and we have no desire to expend time that could lead to an award of attorney fees so substantial as to threaten their financial well-being. We would very much prefer to see this case end with the recognition that filing the lawsuit in the District Court and the Justice Court was a mistake in judgment from which the plaintiffs are willing to walk away.
Consequently, if your clients are ready to dismiss their claims immediately and with prejudice, we are prepared to forgo any claims for attorney fees beyond those previously charged for the proceedings before the Justice Court. If, on the other hand, we have to prepare a motion to dismiss under the TCPA and pursue counterclaims under the DTPA, we will be ready to seek a full award of attorney fees with a clear conscience.
In his November 28, 2016 affidavit, Paul Alan Levy wrote to the court the following:
1. My name is Paul Alan Levy. I have been principal counsel for the Duchouquettes since the outset of the litigation in this Court.
2. I have read Kalle McWhorter’s affidavit, including an assertion about supposed settlement discussions. Since I entered this case, as counsel, Prestigious Pets and Kalle McWhorter have been represented by counsel. Consequently, I have not communicated with them since entering the case. But I have communicated with plaintiffs’ counsel on several occasions, attempting to persuade him to engage in discussions about possible resolutions of this case short of litigation, either resolving the case in its entirety or at least narrowing the issues presented for decision by the Court. However, to the best of my knowledge, Kalle McWhorter was never a party to those communications.
3. My efforts to reach out to plaintiffs’ counsel included sending him a detailed letter before we filed our motion under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, laying out many of the problems I perceived with his clients’ claims. advising him that pursuing the litigation could be very costly for his clients, and offering to allow plaintiffs to dismiss their lawsuit in this Court without any payment of fees for the time we had already spent on the case. A copy of that letter is attached as Exhibit 1G. When I discussed the matter with Mr. Richmond after he had seen the letter, he did not tell me either that the plaintiffs wanted to settle the case, or what terms the plaintiffs would require or accept to withdraw the litigation.
4. In filing the motion for an award of attorney fees and sanctions, I was aware of the possibility that the amount sought to be awarded might exceed plaintiffs’ ability to pay (although I have no information about their actual financial situation). For that reason, I contacted Mr.Richmond to let him know what the amounts we would be seeking, urging him to make a counterproposal. He never got back to me.
5. Had he responded with a showing of his client’s finances, that is certainly a matter that we would have taken into consideration in deciding about a possible settlement of the fees claim. I have told him that privately. See also Exhibit 1H (blog post dated September 27, 2016).
It could have been stopped at anytime by Prestigious Pets and Kalle McWhorter. In fact, it seems at every turn, they were looking to pick a fight and get revenge against the Duchouqettes. Court documents and exhibits provides ample evidence of this.
I am not going to try to write one huge article that demonstrates all this. The case has grown into an elephant generating hundreds of pages of court documents to read through. So, I can only eat this elephant one small bite at a time.
At a very basic level, there were the email exchanges between Prestigious Pets and Michelle Duchouquette that showed that Prestigious Pets was not all they represented themselves to be. I have emphasized certain phrases and sentences to show Michelle’s growing frustrations over Prestigious Pets.
October 5, 2015 Prestigious Pets accepts the Michelle’s assignment to pet-sit Barley and Bogey (with 10 additional minutes) from October 16-20, 2015 for a fee of $240.00.
Prestigious Pets: “We have you on schedule. Thank you for booking!”
October 6, 2015 Michelle: “Were quoted $20 and $5 for the visit. Why is it now $20 and $10? Thanks, Michelle”
Prestigious Pets: “Morning Michelle, So sorry for that. We updated the invoice to reflect the $5 instead and resent it to you. :)”
October 8, 2015 Michelle: “Hi, I don’t see that a corrected invoice has been sent and we were also billed for the wrong amount and that has not been corrected. Thanks, Michelle”
Prestigious Pets: “We resent over the new invoice. The overcharges is currently pending and should be back in your account within 3-5 days. :)”
October 14, 2015 Michelle: “Hi, I still have not received the credit or the revised invoice. Michelle”
Prestigious Pets: “Hi Michell (sic), The accountant said that refund should be in your account any day now. If you need the confirmation number we can always get that from the accountant. :)”
October 22, 2015 Michelle: “Hi, The credit was finally received. I would like (to) share my feedback on your company and services.” (Long list of feedback and criticisms follows)
“The over-charging on the invoice was yet another issue that was unacceptable. We never received the corrected invoice and it took multiple requests to get the credit. We would like our keys returned. Thanks Michelle”
October 26, 2015 Michelle: Hi, While I understand you would like to address my concerns, we have no plans to use Prestigious Pets in the future and I don’t want to spend the time to go through the various issues. We would like the keys returned. Thanks, Michelle”
Prestigious Pets: PP sends a long email about how returning the keys is not a problem and refers to the client agreement. PP offers different options to deal with the keys including destroying them, sent via certified mail for a $15 fee, or scheduling a walk/visit when Michelle is home and to return the key at the same time.
October 28, 2015 Michelle: “I asked for the keys to be left when Amanda left the house. This was on our notes to her and if there was a question about where to leave them, she should have brought it up with you. I have attached the picture of the note that was left for her asking to leave the keys.“
Michelle makes another complaint about the care of her fish.
“I want the keys returned. Thanks, Michelle”.
Read the Prestigious emails from the court documents below:
My Comments Prestigious Pets (PP) was clearly tone-deaf which frustrated and angered Michelle. If you look at the timeline, Prestigious Pets took way too long to issue a simple refund. PP was too concerned with their own internal accounting system when a simple hand-written check quickly mailed off to Michelle would have immediately fixed (or at least minimized) the aggravation Michelle felt.
And regarding the key return request Michelle repeated in several emails, it’s clear that PP wanted to enforce the petty collection of the $15 fee. I have used Certified Mail. It doesn’t cost $15 to send one or two keys via Certified Mail. She should have just returned the keys quickly even if that meant she had to eat the few dollars to send it.
From what I gather, Kalle wrote most or all of the emails. She tried to be “friendly” with the email smiley faces but she ultimately became obnoxious, difficult, and entirely tone-deaf.
Ultimately, PP just couldn’t accept that Michelle couldn’t be turned back (understandably) or satisfied, and the rest is history.
In response to recent queries about the current status of the Prestigious Pets lawsuit in Dallas County, Texas, I have prepared this resource page that lists Public Citizen’s posts and updates to the case. There are many stories written about the Prestigious Pets lawsuit but most are secondary sources of reporting. Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen is at the very heart of the case as he is currently lead counsel representing defendants, Robert and Michelle Duchouquette against Prestigious Pets and its owner, Kalle McWhorter.
For people who don’t know what the Prestigious Pets lawsuit is all about, in short, it is about a Texas-based pet-sitting business (Prestigious Pets) who objected to one of its customers (Michelle Duchouquette) negative and unflattering Yelp review about their experience. Prestigious Pets felt that what Michelle wrote was unfair, untrue, and a violation of the non-disparagement clause in their agreement. Michelle stood by her review.
A local lawyer, Tom Fleischer, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Duchouquettes. The Duchouqettes did not acquiesce to the demand to take down the Yelp review but Michelle modified the Yelp review to accommodate some points made in Fleischer’s letter. Prestigious Pets then filed a $6,700 lawsuit in a Texas small claims court but it was ultimately dropped after the Duchouqettes went public with their story. However, instead of cutting their losses and letting the matter go, Kalle McWhorter, owner of Prestigious Pets, with the assistance of Texas Attorney Bill Richmond, came forward to file a much larger and accusatory lawsuit naming HERSELF and Prestigious Pets as plaintiffs against the Duchouqettes. She and Prestigious Pets asked for up to $1 million in this lawsuit. Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen subsequently took on the case and became lead counsel for the Duchouquettes. The case was ultimately dismissed by the judge. Despite Mr. Levy’s attempts to settle the matter with Mr. Richmond following the court’s dismissal, Kalle McWhorter and Prestigious Pets have chosen to not settle the matter which has forced the case forward with several matters still unresolved.
I have followed the case closely. I have personally read nearly every court document filed in Case #DC-16-03561: Kalle McWhorter and Prestigious Pets LLC (Plaintiffs) v. Robert and Michelle Duchouquette. There is a LOT of information in the case documents that the general news media have NOT reported on. At some point, I will comment on what I found that will be of interest to those following this case. For now, I refer people to read Paul Alan Levy’s own posts of the case thus far. Although it appears the Duchouquettes appear to have won, there is still uncertainty in this case because an appeal is possible.
Most recent articles listed first. (This page will be periodically updated as the story unfolds and reported.)
In addition to Paul Alan Levy’s updates, I recommend Cristin Severance’s CBS-DFW TV news reports as they are one of the original reporting sources and directly interview Michelle Duchouquette and Paul Alan Levy.
This case involves a 20-year old Texas nursing student, Lan Cai, who was a victim of a severe car accident by a drunk driver. She sought legal assistance to help her through insurance and other issues. She went to the Houston-based Tuan A. Kuu’s law firm based on a referral. She had bad experiences with them, how they treated her, and how they handled her case. She ultimately decided to go with another lawyer to represent her. She complained online and wrote a negative Yelp and Facebook review about Tuan Kuu’s law firm.
She was subsequently warned and threatened by Attorney Keith Nguyen to remove her reviews. When she didn’t comply, Tuan Kuu’s law firm filed a lawsuit against her for $100,000-$200,000. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed and an award for $26,000 was granted to her for attorney’s fees.
Although she was victorious, this is yet another outrageous case of someone trying to blackmail and threaten someone into silence and to force the withdrawal of someone’s negative Yelp reviews and complaints about a service provider.
Most recent articles listed first. (This page will be periodically updated as the story is reported.)
