When an attorney from the Tuan A. Khuu law firm threatened to sue her for writing negative comments about the firm on Facebook and Yelp, 20-year-old Lan Cai was barely deterred. 
 
 Lawyers at the law firm, Cai wrote on Facebook, had first gone into her bedroom while she was half-asleep under the covers in her underwear, ignored her phone calls after she signed a contract, and left her hanging when she arrived at the office to demand an explanation for their behavior. When attorney Keith Nguyen asked her to delete the comments or face a lawsuit, she simply wrote an even more negative Yelp review, warning people to watch out because the firm will sue for bad reviews. Soon after, the firm sued her for libel, alleging the statements she made were false and would severely damage its reputation. 
 
 Looks like coming down hard on a 20-year-old nursing student who waits tables six days a week — and asking for between $100,000 and $200,000 in damages — has backfired on the law firm. Because last week, Tuan A. Khuu lost in court and was ordered instead to pay $27,000 in attorneys' fees. 
 
 “I'm just proud of this young lady for standing up to these people,” said Cai's attorney, Michael Fleming. “A lot of other people would have folded and said it's not worth it fighting this law firm — I'll just change the review. But she stood up to them, she did the right thing and she was successful.” 
 
 Fleming immediately recognized the lawsuit against Cai as a SLAPP suit — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Anti-SLAPP laws were passed in Texas several years ago to protect people against bullies who want to silence people's opinions on the Internet in order to hide criticism of their companies or services — to protect people like Cai, or frequent Yelp reviewers. 
 
 In this case, Cai was criticizing the Tuan A. Khuu attorneys' lack of professionalism that she said led her to drop them. She said she had been hit by a drunk driver and needed help navigating insurance and her entitlement to damages. But after a bad experience, here's what she wrote in a Facebook group called Vietnamese Americans in Houston to make sure no one made the same mistake. In italics is what Tuan A. Khuu Law Firm considered — wrongly, a judge ruled — to be libelous: 
 
 “After 3 days, they didn't tell me anything about the doctor I needed to go to. I was in a lot of pain. Not only that, they didn't know where the hell my car was! And they came to my house and into my room to talk to me when I was sleeping in my underwear. Seriously, it's super unprofessional! ...I came in to the office to meet with my previous attorney, but he literally ran off.” 
 
 
 
 A few days later, Nguyen sent Cai this scary-sounding email: “It has come to my attention that you have posted some dispariging [sic] words on your Facebook account. ...If you do not remove the post from Facebook and any other social media sites, my office will have no choice but to file suit.” 
 
 Fleming said the threat was a surefire sign that this was a SLAPP case — but even without it, Fleming says he believes Cai still would have won the case, since the firm would not have met the burden for a libel lawsuit, which requires plaintiffs to prove the statements are false and would seriously defame them. 
 
 Problem No. 1: Even Nguyen admitted to the Houston Press in an earlier interview that the statements were “half-truths.” One example he gave was that the attorneys did walk in on Cai while she was sleeping in her underwear — but maintained her mother invited them in and they didn't know she was in her underwear. Another: Nguyen was in fact on his way out the door when Cai came to the firm asking for an explanation, but took a little time to explain to her why there were liens on her insurance before leaving her. 
 
 Problem No. 2: Plenty of other people had written much meaner reviews of Tuan A. Khuu on the Internet, and so it would be unlikely that one more from Cai would have seriously hurt the firm, Fleming said. 
 
 “Somebody may not like statements made about them — but they don't get to the level of defamation unless they could seriously damage their reputation,” Fleming said. “This woman believed she was providing a truthful review of her experiences with this law firm. And to her credit, she was threatened with the lawsuit and did not back down.” 
 
 Tuan A. Khuu attorneys did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Asked last time whether he felt at all bad about suing a college student for more than 100 times what she has in her bank account —and possibly hurting her chances at getting a degree and a job — Nguyen had said no. 
 
 “It's not ruining someone's career chances. They need to think before they post,” Nguyen said. “She needs to learn — people need to learn that there are consequences for their actions.” ||||| When 20-year-old Lan Cai was in a car crash this summer, it was a bad situation. Driving home at 1:30am from a waitressing shift, Cai was plowed into by a drunk driver and broke two bones in her lower back. Unsure about how to navigate her car insurance and prove damages, she reached out for legal help. 
 
 The help she got, Cai said, was less than satisfactory. Lawyers from the Tuan A. Khuu law firm ignored her contacts, and at one point they came into her bedroom while Cai was sleeping in her underwear. "Seriously, it's super unprofessional!" she wrote on Facebook. (The firm maintains it was invited in by Cai's mother.) She also took to Yelp to warn others about her bad experience. 
 
 The posts led to a threatening e-mail from Tuan Khuu attorney Keith Nguyen. "If you do not remove the post from Facebook and any other social media sites, my office will have no choice but to file suit," he told her, according to a report in the Houston Press on the saga. 
 
 Nguyen and his associates went ahead and filed that lawsuit, demanding the young woman pay up between $100,000 and $200,000—more than 100 times what she had in her bank account. 
 
 "I feel like they're trying to pull every single penny out of me just because I didn't want to be their client," Cai told the Houston Press. Cai was working six days a week to pay her way through nursing school at Houston Community College. 
 
 Nguyen said he didn't feel bad at all about suing Cai, adding: "I feel sorry for her, because again, I gave her plenty of opportunities to retract and delete her post and she refused. She was proud: 'I've got it on Facebook. I've got it on Yelp,' with no remorse." 
 
 SLAPP-down 
 
 Cai didn't remove her review, though. Instead she fought back against the Khuu firm, which had only represented her for a few days. She found a new attorney, Michael Fleming, who took her case pro bono. 
 
 Fleming filed a motion arguing that, first and foremost, Cai's social media complaints were true. Second, she couldn't do much to damage the reputation of a firm that already had multiple poor reviews. He argued the lawsuit was a clear SLAPP (strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Like many states, Texas has a law allowing for SLAPP suits to be thrown out at early stages of litigation. 
 
 Ultimately, the judge agreed with Fleming, ordering [PDF] the Khuu firm to pay $26,831.55 in attorneys' fees. 
 
 "We are very happy with the judge’s correct ruling in this case," Fleming told Ars via e-mail. "Texas law specifically protects folks who are exercising their free speech rights and the statute was appropriately applied in this situation. People should be free to express their opinions without the threat of a lawsuit." 
 
 The Khuu firm hasn't commented about the case. 
 
 In the end, Cai's saga will be one more warning sign to anyone seeking to limit US consumers' right to kvetch, whether online or off. ||||| Twenty-year-old Lan Cai was half-asleep under the covers, in her underwear, the first time she met the lawyers from the Tuan A. Khuu law firm. And already, they were off to a bad start. 
 
 She had just been in a serious car accident while driving home from her job as a server at 1:30 in the morning. A drunk driver hit her, Cai said, and then she was immediately struck by another vehicle that could not avoid a collision. Cai broke two bones in her lower back. 
 
 Cai had never been in a major accident before, and she needed help from the attorneys while navigating insurance and proving her entitlement to damages. But when the attorneys came to her home, entered her bedroom (the attorneys maintain Cai's mother told them to go in) and then ignored her phone calls and emails in the days immediately after Cai signed the contract, she felt like hiring them was a mistake. 
 
 And she couldn't be more certain after the Tuan A. Khuu law firm of Houston sued her for between $100,000 and $200,000 after she wrote an unfavorable Yelp review and described her bad experience in a Facebook group, as KPRC first reported. 
 
 “I feel like they're trying to pull every single penny out of me,” Cai said, “just because I didn't want to be their client.” 
 
 The law firm claims what Cai wrote is libelous, meaning the published statements are false and will severely hurt the firm's reputation. Cai says she was simply sharing her opinion after she decided to switch to a new law firm — that way no one else has to make the same mistake she did. 
 
 Here's what she wrote on Facebook, in a group called Vietnamese Americans in Houston, that the law firm thinks is defamatory: “After 3 days, they didn't tell me anything about the doctor I needed to go to. I was in a lot of pain. Not only that, they didn't know where the hell my car was! And they came to my house and into my room to talk to me when I was sleeping in my underwear. Seriously, it's super unprofessional! ...I came in to the office to meet with my previous attorney, but he literally ran off.” 
 
 Tuan A. Khuu attorney Keith Nguyen saw the post and immediately sent Cai an email, saying, 'It has come to my attention that you have posted some dispariging [sic] words on your Facebook account. ...If you do not remove the post from Facebook and any other social media sites, my office will have no choice but to file suit.” 
 
 That's right, no choice but to sue a 20-year-old waitress working six days a week to pay her way through nursing school at Houston Community College, for more than 100 times what she has in her bank account. Asked whether he feels at all bad about this, Nguyen said, “No, I don't feel bad at all. I feel sorry for her, because again, I gave her plenty of opportunities to retract and delete her post and she refused. She was proud: 'I've got it on Facebook. I've got it on Yelp,' with no remorse.” 
 
 To be clear, Cai is not the only person who has written a bad review of Tuan A. Khuu. In fact, good reviews are hard to find, no matter which of the law firm's three locations you search. A guy named Han in Richardson, Texas, wrote, “Duped and filthy legal services. They trap you in their plan and dupe you out for their own goods. Stay away to protect yourself and your family.” A guy named Kevin from Austin: “They like to delay responses and make excuses for not returning calls. Incompetent and unreliable are the words I would use to describe their staff.” Charlie from Houston: “I went in for a 'free consultation' and it became a decision I would soon regret.” 
 
 Cai after her car accident. Courtesy Lan Cai 
 
 So why did Nguyen and company go after Cai? Nguyen said, “We don't mind if someone writes a bad review, as long as it's true.” 
 
 He claims Cai's is full of “half-truths.” For example, when Cai says that her lawyer “literally ran off” when she showed up unannounced, Nguyen concedes he was on his way out the door, but took a moment to explain to her why there were liens on her insurance. The lawyers who went into her room had no idea she was in her underwear and say they were invited in, Nguyen explained. “It puts us in a bad light,” Nguyen said. “I said [to her], You can say that, but you need to add that we were invited. And she never did. She went ahead and wrote more bad things.” 
 
 Cai took to Yelp and Facebook to warn others that, apparently, if you say something mean about Tuan A. Khuu, the firm will sue you. "I wouldn't even give this law firm a star," she said in reference to Yelp's five-star rating system. 
 
 For now, Cai is planning to take a semester off of school. The car accident, the broken bones, the insurance hounds, the elusive attorneys — and now this defamation lawsuit — are all too much for her to handle alongside a five-day-a-week nursing program and six days of waiting tables. She's still looking for an attorney to represent her, but Cai is concerned about what a loss in court will mean for her future. 
 
 Asked whether he might irreparably damage Cai's future, Nguyen said no: “It's not ruining someone's career chances. They need to think before they post...She needs to learn — people need to learn that there are consequences for their actions.” 
 
 If she loses, Cai said she'll probably have to drop out altogether. 
 
 *See our follow-up story, "Student Sued by Law Firm for Bad Facebook Review Asks Judge to Dismiss Case."
– "I'm just proud of this young lady," attorney Michael Fleming tells the Houston Press. "She stood up to them, she did the right thing, and she was successful." Last summer, 20-year-old Houston resident Lan Cai was hit by a drunk driver, breaking two bones in her back. She hired the Law Offices of Tuan A. Khuu and Associates to help her figure out her insurance and damages, Ars Technica reports. But she says the law firm was less than satisfactory. According to the Houston Chronicle, Cai says they ignored her phone calls and emails, put a lien on her insurance, and even came into her bedroom while she was sleeping in her underwear ("super unprofessional!"). As a result, she left some bad reviews on Yelp and Facebook. Khuu attorney Keith Nguyen sued Cai for libel after she refused to take down the bad reviews, seeking up to $200,000 from a student working six nights a week to put herself through nursing school. "She needs to learn...that there are consequences," Nguyen told the Press. And perhaps Khuu attorneys need to learn that there are anti-SLAPP laws in Texas. These laws protect consumers from businesses angry about online reviews. A judge threw out the libel lawsuit this week after Fleming, working pro bono for Cai, successfully argued that Cai's negative reviews couldn't be proven false and that the Khuu law firm wouldn't be hurt by them because they already have plenty of other negative reviews. The judge also ordered the law firm to pay Cai's attorney fees of $27,000. (An Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star left an irate Yelp review.)