A $1 million lawsuit filed by a Dallas pet-sitting company against a Plano couple who wrote a one-star review has been dismissed. 
 
 Prestigious Pets and its owner filed the lawsuit against Michelle and Robert Duchouquette, accusing them of defamation, business disparagement and a breach of contract after the couple posted the negative review on Yelp. 
 
 Thompson & Knight, the law firm representing the Duchouquettes, said in a prepared statement that a Dallas County district court granted the couple's motion to dismiss the case Friday. 
 
 The Duchouquettes argued the case should be dismissed based on the Texas Anti-SLAPP statute, meant to allow judges to dismiss frivolous suits filed against people who speak out about a matter of public concern. 
 
 
 
 Prestigious Pets sought between $200,000 and $1 million in damages, up from an initial $6,700, which Bill Richmond, the attorney for the company, said was made to reflect a loss in business. 
 
 
 
 Richmond said Prestigious Pets is reviewing its options and may consider appealing the decision. 
 
 "The pets and this business mean everything to the company and its owner," he said in a statement. "They remain confident that Texas law supports enforcing their contract, including the non-disparagement clause, particularly given the proof presented that Prestigious Pets never agreed to care for the fish, was not paid or hired to care for the fish, and the fish was never harmed." 
 
 He said the company tried to resolve the issues before taking legal steps, but "it is unfortunate that those efforts were ignored in favor of the Defendants' ongoing media campaign." 
 
 The Duchouquettes hired Prestigious Pets in October 2015 to watch their two dogs and betta fish, Gordy, while they were on vacation, according to court documents. 
 
 
 
 In the Yelp review, the Duchouquettes said their betta fish's tank looked murky in a video feed, the billing was messed up and the company tried to charge to return the keys to the family. 
 
 
 
 "The one star is for potentially harming my fish, otherwise it would have been 2 stars," the review stated. 
 
 The family said in the review that the care for their dogs "was fine." 
 
 Prestigious Pets said the Duchouquettes violated a nondisparagement clause in their contract by posting the review, and that their statements were false and defamatory. 
 
 
 
 In the complaint, Prestigious Pets and its owner Kalle McWhorter said the family did not initially tell the company it had a fish and that the sitter agreed to feed the betta for free after the Duchouquettes "demanded" it. The sitter did not agree to clean the fish bowl or change the water and was told to feed it less, according to court documents. 
 
 
 
 Documents provided by Richmond, the company's attorney, show only two pets on the contract -- dogs Bogey and Barley. 
 
 The complaint also said McWhorter and her husband "have had to deal with numerous rape and death threats" and other forms of harassment. 
 
 The Duchouquettes' review is still up on the page, which has an average of 4.5 stars, but the Yelp page for the company now features a consumer alert reminding reviewers that they have a First Amendment right to express their opinions. 
 
 The business "may be trying to abuse the legal system in an effort to stifle free speech, including issuing questionable legal threats against reviewers," the alert states. 
 
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 @clairezcardona ||||| The six-month saga of the Texas petsitter who sued a customer for up to $1 million in damages over a negative Yelp review appears to have come to an end, with a judge agreeing to dismiss the case that made national headlines. 
 
 Just to backtrack, in case you’ve somehow had more important things to read about than petsitter-related litigation in the Lone Star State. 
 
 A couple in Plano, TX, hired a local petsitting company to look after their dogs and fish while they were on vacation. The customers weren’t terribly thrilled about the quality of service they received and shared their feedback publicly on Yelp in Oct. 2015. 
 
 The petsitting company not only responded to that write-up, but followed it with a cease-and-desist notice directing the customers to remove their review. When they did not take their Yelp post down, the petsitter filed a lawsuit in justice of the peace court for around $6,700, accusing the couple of violating a non-disparagement clause in the petsitter’s customer agreement. 
 
 Non-disparagement clauses are questionably legal conditions inserted into contracts and agreements that try to prohibit consumers from freely expressing their opinion on a transaction. California recently outlawed such clauses and a bipartisan bill that would make them illegal nationwide is waiting for Congress to return for a vote. 
 
 After the initial lawsuit made national headlines, the petsitter dropped that complaint and re-filed their case in a state district court, expanding on the allegations to include defamation and upping the damage request to as much as $1 million. 
 
 By this point, the case had attracted the attention of advocates for consumers and free expression. Attorney Paul Alan Levy from Public Citizen took on the task of asking the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the petsitter’s complaint is a frivolous SLAPP. That’s a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation”; in other words, a lawsuit filed in the hopes of getting the defendant to shut up. 
 
 The Texas Citizens Participation Act is an example of a so-called “anti-SLAPP” statute, allowing the defendants in cases involving issues of speech to seek a dismissal if the plaintiff can’t “establish by clear and specific evidence a prima facie case for each essential element of the claim in question.” 
 
 READ MORE ABOUT SLAPPs & ANTI-SLAPP STATUTES 
 
 The judge heard from all parties involved in this mess in late July and today issued an order [PDF] dismissing the petsitter’s lawsuit. 
 
 In accordance with the Texas anti-SLAPP law, the defendants are also now entitled to recover court costs and reasonable and necessary attorney fees from the petsitter. 
 
 Levy says that by “seeking to silence negative criticism,” the petsitters may have ended up risking the future of their entire company. 
 
 “Not only did the company lose business when customers were disgusted over the non-disparagement lawsuit, it now is responsible to pay attorney fees and sanctions,” he explains. 
 
 In a statement, the couple expressed their relief and gratitude regarding today’s ruling. 
 
 “We should all have the opportunity to express our opinions without the fear of a lawsuit,” reads the statement. “We are so grateful for the attorneys who have supported us through the case. It took lots of hours and many smart minds spending too much time talking about Gordy the betta fish. Thank goodness they did not lose sight of the real issue: the threats posed by non-disparagement clauses to our right to free speech.” 
 
 In response to the petsitter story and other dubious lawsuits filed against Yelp users, the reviews site recently began publicly flagging certain companies that were believed to be making “questionable legal threats” over online reviews. 
 
 “Consumers don’t necessarily know that these threats are sometimes empty or meritless (and often both!), so the threat of legal action is enough to scare them into silence,” wrote Yelp Sr. VP Vince Sollitto earlier this summer. “We don’t think that’s right.” ||||| A Texas pet-sitting business is seeking up to $1 million in damages from a couple who gave a one-star review on Yelp and criticized the company's treatment of their tiny blue tropical Betta fish "Gordy" while the family was away on vacation. The company, Prestigious Pets of Dallas, claims the review is a breach of a non-disparagement clause and defamation. 
 
 Paul Alan Levy, a Public Citizen lawyer who is defending the couple, summarized the company's revised suit (PDF) targeting the couple. 
 
 The new lawsuit, however, specifies one statement from the review in particular: that the company’s assigned pet-sitter had potentially caused serious harm to the couple’s fish by putting too much food in a fish-bowl while the couple were away on vacation for a few days. The complaint alleges that a charge of overfeeding a fish is libel per se because it amounts to the criminal offense of animal cruelty under Texas law (if giving too much food to a pet fish were really a crime, I expect there would be thousands of Texas second-graders facing jail time every year!) 
 
 Levy's defense, filed Thursday in a local Dallas court, is that the family's review was truthful and protected by the First Amendment. 
 
 "As our filing in the case indicates, though, there are photos showing that the fish water became cloudy and that food accumulated at the bottom of the tank, which must have been caused by overfeeding, and apparently overfeeding is a serious issue for this kind of tropical fish," Levy said. 
 
 Michelle and Robert Duchouquette, of Plano, said they discovered Prestigious Pets in Dallas on Yelp and that the company's page was full of five-star ratings. The couple hired the service last year before heading on a five-day trip to Napa Valley in California. The firm walked and fed the couple's two dogs, too. On Yelp, Michelle also complained about the company's billing practices. The review, however, also said that the "care of our dogs was fine." 
 
 That was distinctly not the case with Gordy, according to the Duchouquettes' review. 
 
 The one star is for potentially harming my fish, otherwise it would have been two stars. We have a camera on the bowl and we watched the water go from clear to cloudy. There was a layer of food on the bottom from way too much being put in it. Even if you don't have fish, you should be able to see the change in the bowl and stop putting in food. Better yet, ask us how much to feed if you are unsure. 
 
 The suit claims that the couple asked in the 11th hour for the firm to feed Gordy, and the company agreed to do so without charge. The company also said that because of intense media coverage stemming from earlier incarnations of the suit, its owner and her husband "have had to deal with numerous rape and death threats that have come on the heels of the Duchouquettes' media campaign, in addition to other forms of harassment such as identify theft, impersonations, can calls, etc." The lawsuit says the company has "seen a dramatic decrease in new business as fallout from the legal battle." 
 
 Prestigious Pets noted that the couple agreed, under the service contract, "not to make negative comments about Prestigious Pets and to not disparage Prestigious Pets." 
 
 In pertinent part, the non-disparagement clause states: “[Y]our acceptance of this agreement prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts Prestigious Pets, LLC, its reputation, products, services, management, employees or independent contractors....Any violation of this clause is to be determined by Prestigious Pets LLC in its sole discretion....” The non-disparagement provision was in the same legible typeface, size, and font as the remainder of the Agreement, began with the heading “NON-DISPARAGEMENT / INJUNCTION,” and it was immediately above the signature line on the second page of the two-page contract. Mr. Duchouquette voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently signed the Agreement and agreed to the non-disparagement provision after it was provided to him by Prestigious Pets’ independent contractor pet sitter. 
 
 The disparagement went beyond the Yelp review, too, according to the lawsuit. It reportedly included a "variety of written and broadcast mediums, including but not limited to via Facebook, Inc., ABC.com, CBS.com, and other media outlets." 
 
 The real kicker is the defamation allegation regarding Michelle's statement on Yelp and media interviews about Gordy being overfed. 
 
 The statements are defamation per se because each (a) was reasonably calculated to injure Plaintiffs’ reputation and thus exposed them to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, or financial injury,1 (b) injured Plaintiffs in their business/occupation regarding the alleged lack of a peculiar or unique skill (pet care) necessary for the proper conduct of the business/occupation, and (c) falsely charged Plaintiffs with the commission of an act that is a crime (violation of TEX. PENAL CODE § 42.092, “Cruelty to Nonlivestock Animals”). The statements have been continuously published and re-published both by the Duchouquettes and by third parties. 
 
 In a blog post, Levy said this litigation is worth "watching because until Congress passes the Consumer Review Freedom Act, it could be our best chance to get one of these clauses declared unenforceable." He said the Duchouquettes’ hold a "First Amendment right to make fair comments about the plaintiff company." 
 
 The irony here is that if Prestigious Pets didn't initially go to small claims court about the review, virtually nobody would have known of—or cared—about Gordy's diet.
– A petsitting company's attempt to sue for $1 million over a one-star Yelp review got zero stars from a Dallas County district court, which firmly rejected the lawsuit. The court also decided that Michelle and Robert Duchouquette, the couple being sued by Prestigious Pets, "would be awarded their reasonable attorney fees as well as sanctions to deter future such lawsuits," according to Public Citizen. The Duchouquettes posted the bad review after hiring the company to look after their two dogs and betta fish during a trip to Texas, and returning to find that the betta fish had apparently been overfed. The company initially sued for nearly $7,000, but later filed a suit for the higher amount, claiming the couple had violated a non-disparagement clause in their agreement. The Duchouquettes filed an anti-SLAPP—Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation—motion, which allowed the court to strike down what it viewed as a frivolous lawsuit aimed at quashing the couple's right to free speech, the Dallas Morning News reports. "We are so grateful for the attorneys who have supported us through the case," the couple said in a statement, per Consumerist. "It took lots of hours and many smart minds spending too much time talking about Gordy the betta fish. Thank goodness they did not lose sight of the real issue: the threats posed by non-disparagement clauses to our right to free speech." (This woman was sued after posting a bad review about a law firm.)