Cavin v. Abbott, 071417 TXCA3, 03-16-00395-CV
| Opinion Judge | Bob Pemberton, Justice |
| Party Name | Wylie Cavin; Lillian Cavin; and Eagle Radiology, PLLC, Appellants v. Kristin Abbott and William Abbott, Appellees |
| Judge Panel | Before Justices Puryear, Pemberton, and Field |
| Case Date | July 14, 2017 |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY, 98TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT NO. D-1-GN-16-000201, HONORABLE SCOTT H. JENKINS, JUDGE PRESIDING
Before Justices Puryear, Pemberton, and Field
OPINION
Bob Pemberton, Justice
This case illustrates that the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA), 1 as written-and, therefore, as the Texas Judiciary must apply it-can be invoked successfully in the context of litigation arising from family tumult over an adult daughter's choice of a husband. Among our holdings, we are compelled to conclude that the TCPA's protections extend to-and, ultimately, require dismissal of claims complaining of-statements by the bride's parents that their daughter's suitor won her hand through use of "Marxist" brainwashing, hypnotic implantation of phobias and false memories, or similar mind-control tactics. (Although the bride's father contemporaneously acknowledged that these assertions "sound crazy, " that is no bar to the TCPA's application as the statute is written and as the Texas Supreme Court has authoritatively interpreted it).
Further, at least in the posture of this appeal, the TCPA also protects, and requires dismissal of claims concerning, inter alia, stalking by private investigators the parents hired, the father's alleged theft of the daughter's car, and the father's unfavorable comparison of the husband's physical appearance to a "dog's butt." But an express exception for bodily-injury claims prevents this "anti-SLAPP" law from similarly barring an assault claim predicated on an alleged violent attack by the father upon the daughter.
The district court denied TCPA dismissal under these circumstances and required the movants to pay attorney's fees. The net effect of our holdings is that we must affirm the district court's order only with respect to the assault claim, dismiss each of the other claims, and remand the issues of attorney's fees and sanctions.
BACKGROUND
The TCPA requires us to dismiss most of the couple's claims despite their presentation of evidence, attached as exhibits to their pleadings, that potentially would be compelling before a jury-chiefly, copies of dozens of "smoking gun" texts, emails, letters, and other writings generated by the parents that reflect an array of often-disturbing acts that form the basis for the couple's claims. The parents have not disputed the authenticity of these documents, nor otherwise opposed their inclusion in the record before the district court. Because these acknowledged words and deeds provide perhaps the best explanation of the unusual circumstances from which this case arises, we will draw from them extensively in the following summary.
Appellees Kristin and William (Bill) Abbott were married in the fall of 2014. Kristin is the daughter-and only child-of appellants Wylie and Lillian Cavin.2 As Kristin's relationship with Bill progressed toward matrimony, the Cavins voiced strong parental disapproval of their daughter's choice of husband and attempted to intervene to prevent the union. At the time the Cavins asserted this gatekeeper role, Kristin was in her mid-20s, lived in a separate residence, and had graduated college about four years earlier. In the interim, Kristin had worked at the Public Utility Commission before leaving in 2013 to pursue a master's degree in the energy field at the University of Texas. The Cavins professed to perceive Kristin as uniquely vulnerable due to a hearing impairment, which requires her to wear hearing aids in both ears. The Cavins had also retained considerable sway in Kristin's adult life by continuing to subsidize her education, living expenses, and a car.
The Cavins' opposition to the relationship and a corresponding distancing of Kristin eventually led to a pivotal parent-daughter confrontation in Kristin's apartment in late February 2014. On that occasion, the parties agree, Kristin pointedly advised her parents that she would continue pursuing the relationship with Bill despite their wishes. A physical altercation ensued in which Wylie and Kristin both ended up on the floor, although the parties dispute who roughed up whom.3 In the incident's aftermath, the Cavins would send texts accusing Kristin of disloyalty and ingratitude toward them, and Lillian by phone accused Bill of "destroying" their family. Wiley also sent texts to Bill conveying both insults and threats.
With this prologue, Kristin continued to assert her autonomy from her parents during the weeks and months that followed.4 She went on to marry Bill, as previously indicated, and in the meantime attempted (with mixed success) to cut off further contact from the Cavins, relocated her residence from her parent-funded apartment to Bill's apartment (she professed to fear further violence from Wylie, who apparently had access), and changed her surname from Cavin to Whitley (Lillian's maiden name) even before taking the Abbott surname upon the couple's marriage a few weeks later. She also opted to return to work at the PUC after leaving her graduate program, a departure from prior parentally approved plans to next pursue an MBA at a prestigious university in another city (the Cavins had placed considerable emphasis on Kristin's "upward path" toward becoming an executive in the electric power industry).
Meanwhile, as both a response to and further impetus for Kristin's assertions of independence, the Cavins escalated their efforts to disrupt Kristin's marriage plans and related life decisions. As reflected in their numerous writings, the Cavins pursued tactics that included hiring a private investigator in 2014 to research Bill's personal history, later using information they perceived unflattering to disparage Bill to Kristin and others. The Cavins also directed the investigator to surveil the couple and (as Wylie described it in an email to the investigator) to "rattle" Bill by making the investigator's presence known. After an investigator showed up at the PUC in June 2014, ostensibly to ascertain her welfare on her parents' behalf, Kristin filed a police report complaining of the investigator's "stalking" of her.
The Cavins also continued-contrary to Kristin's repeated requests and demands-attempting to contact her via text, email, or in-person confrontations. Among the latter was an incident on the University of Texas campus in April 2014, when Lillian showed up unexpectedly following one of Kristin's graduate-school classes, Kristin attempted to avoid Lillian, and an ensuing scene resulted in Lillian's arrest on assault charges.5 Following the arrest, Wylie confiscated the car that Kristin used for transportation (he claimed to be the rightful owner, although the Abbotts dispute this), leaving her stranded afoot on the campus. Later that year, the Austin Police Department would issue a no-contact letter against the Cavins.
The Cavins further attempted to undermine support for the couple's union through numerous communications made to members of both their own and Bill's extended families. They similarly reached out to numerous friends and acquaintances of both the Cavins and Kristin individually. Additionally, after learning that Kristin had applied for re-employment at the PUC in lieu of the MBA program, Wylie wrote a letter to the agency's human-resources director in March 2014 to advise of the Cavins' preference that Kristin "continue with her original educational plans." Wylie further insinuated that the agency bore some responsibility for the couple's "unhealthy relationship" because Bill, who also worked at the agency, had once been placed in a supervisory position over Kristin there.
Similarly, Lillian, who had persistently demanded that Kristin see a church-based counselor whom the Cavins had consulted, wrote a counselor whom Kristin had seen, disparaging Bill and urging the counselor to cooperate in securing a joint session with the Cavins' preferred counselor. In this letter, Lillian also emphasized her own qualifications and status as a medical professional-she is a medical doctor who practices radiology-and utilized the letterhead of the entity through which she practices, Eagle Radiology, PLLC.
The Cavins' numerous writings to Kristin, Bill, or third parties conveyed a variety of concerns and criticisms regarding Bill. Among these, the Cavins insinuated that Bill was seeking to exploit Kristin for her money[6] and otherwise questioned his general worthiness to wed their beautiful daughter (e.g, Wylie urging Kristin via email that she and Bill "look[] like a beautiful flower next to a pile of dogshit" and that he "could shave a dog's butt and teach him to walk backwards and he'd look better than Bill Abbott").
But the Cavins also advanced a less orthodox parental objection that also served as an alternative explanation for their daughter's alienation from them and disregard of their wishes. They professed an emphatic belief that Bill had a "sociopathic" or "narcissistic" psychological disorder and that he, aided by an educational background in psychology (one of his undergraduate degrees), had predatorily used "Marxist tactics, " "re-education, " "brainwashing, " "implant[ing] thoughts, false memories, and phobias, " or other means of psychological coercion to wield control over Kristin's mind and actions. The Cavins similarly deduced, as further explanation for Kristin's assertions of autonomy, that Bill had likely installed software enabling him to monitor Kristin's email and text communications and that Bill must have been the true author of emails or texts sent under Kristin's name. As Wylie...
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