Tati Westbrook vs. Without A Crystal Ball: Defamation Suit Explained

[00:00:01]well i'm going to be honest didn't see that coming [Laughter] look it's not every day that we get to break down lawsuits on the youtubes it started with kanye west leaking his documents and y'all were like can we just keep breaking down legal documents and i'm like yeah we can and then the tati westbrook lawsuit came up and it was like let's talk about it and then tati sues a drama channel on youtube so now we're gonna break that one down and talk about it if you're new here i'm emily d baker i'm the badass lawyer and host of the get legit law and [ __ ] podcast i'm a legal commentator i've been an attorney for over 15 years i'm a former deputy district attorney i am a legal consultant i'm licensed in california not the state of washington where this newest suit is from if you are new here go ahead and like and subscribe if you see a channel that needs the legal background on these documents send them the video i am here to make the legal easy to understand for everyone and try not to be too shady in the process i look i get nosy i am totally totally a nosy girl i also use the cursey words so just know if you didn't guess from the title of my podcast law and [ __ ] is what i like to talk about and i will drop some cursy words so today we are going to talk about first what this case is about second what i learned from the case that surprised me third i'm gonna go through and break down page by page like i did with the toddy westbrook suit and then what comes next for a lawsuit like this for everyone who shared the last video and i'll card it up above um on reddit what have you such a great conversation on the good judy's reddit for you guys know i love petermon i'm going to keep telling you i love petermont i love petermon's channel i love his intro i found his channel during dramageddon because i was like i need to know all the drama getting one not drama getting two um because i love youtube it's my favorite platform i love watching youtube i like watching youtubers i like watching how they put their videos together and what they share and peter is for sure one of my favorites on this platform and through that i found things like beauty guru chatter over on reddit i don't spend a lot of time on reddit but i'm starting to um just because i love the conversation and that's what i love about youtube it's it's a place where we can have conversations that no one in our immediate life wants to have with us that's just the truth my husband is like what's wrong with you i'm like oh my god so toddy westbrook's totally getting sued by your business partner and this is what's going down and i didn't even realize she had a business party she was always like you know it's my brand and blah blah blah my husband's like and i just don't care and covid so we're not even around people that want to have these conversations i want to have the conversations also you guys ask me excellent questions i'm going to do a question video on these two suits together answering your questions from the comments that are hard to answer in a quick comment because legal is a conversation and it's best to explain that way of course not legal advice but hopefully breaking down this lawsuit will help you understand defamation a little bit better i have another video up here about cardi b's defamation suit where i break down defamation again this is different um because it's defamation with regard to a commentary channel which i'm going to just a likened to a news reporting scenario because i think that's how that really does break down appropriately that it's it is commentary in the form of like opinion pieces and news commentary and all of our news has kind of blended together into quasi commentary anyway hasn't it you all those of you who have been around know exactly how i feel about that it is what it is so let's just get into it somebody's going to be like oh my god her intro is so long uh yeah sometimes sometimes it is so this is at the heart tatty westbrook versus without a crystal ball without a crystal ball is apparently the drama channel that broke the story about the toddy westbrook lawsuit i went back and looked at two or three without a crystal ball videos i was not familiar with her channel y'all shared the things with me thank you i went and watched a few of her videos and there was one leading up to this two leading up to this where she was definitely talking about knowing something big was coming about tati um having a source that was giving her information about tati and this um business behind the scenes and the fact that something big was coming that video is brought up in this lawsuit and it's very interesting to see so this at its heart is really a defamation lawsuit the causes of action and sometimes you'll hear me call them charges because i was a district attorney for over 10 years and so there's times like the criminal language slips out even though we're talking about civil causes of action but defamation defamation per se trade libel which is basically like definition but make it business false light invasion of privacy intentional infliction of emotional distress negligent infliction of emotional distress the washington consumer protection act and civil harassment so we're going to go through all of those charges and what they mean but why i bring them up now is because as i go through how this complaint is pled different from the toddy westbrook business partner complaint you can see really clearly in the pleadings how they are setting up the the factors that go to the different counts so you're seeing the attorneys use the language that go towards each count and we will talk about that for sure so this is written a bit differently and you can compare and contrast the two with my two videos grab a snack the other video ended up being like an hour long y'all hung with me god love you but that's why i wanted to give you a breakdown of what's coming in what order so that's essentially what the case is about tati westbrook quick quick background there are so many channels that cover this toddy westbrook is a beauty influencer on youtube has a lot of subscribers drama went down last year since that drama went down she hasn't been on youtube she's in a lawsuit with a business partner tangentially somewhat related to that drama there is a drama channel or a commentary channel on youtube that has been commentating on the drama apparently there were multiple cease and desists sent um according to the things that without a crystal ball has said on her channel this lawsuit indicates there's been c synthesis like take these videos down you can't say that um she made a video saying that james charles also related to the dramageddon 2 drama in the beauty community reached out to her and said you need to take these videos down regarding tati um this is for your own good and that went down over the summer and now we're here and there's the lawsuit that was alluded to and the lawsuit that without a crystal ball was alluding to in one of her more recent live streams saying something is big is coming with tati and that's in the lawsuit so i'll address it when we get there i also went back through tati's breaking my silence video because i was curious about some of the emotional distress claims here because i remembered in that video which came out over the summer this year i remember in that video her talking about how much distress she went through and i was curious how she framed that because it's going to play in to these emotional distress claims i think so we're going to break that down the things that surprised me in this lawsuit before i pull up the document we go through it was that i saw a lot of headlines that saying like without a crystal balls being sued for five million dollars that's not the demand here it's an estimate because you have to show damages so there's a number in the suit to show damages it's like hey this doesn't belong in limited jurisdiction court which is for lawsuits in washington it's under 75 000 they go to a different process than suits for larger amounts of money but the prayer for relief is not like you owe me five million dollars that's not an accurate framing of what's happening here um toddy and james westbrook moved to washington in 2018 and became permanent residents of the state of washington in 2019 i've seen a lot of speculation about them leaving la but this really clarifies they moved their residents of the state of washington mind you they also have companies in washington state companies in nevada and companies in california but they chose to file the suit against without a crystal ball in the state of washington this lawsuit also touches on things in the business partner partner tati's suit there are things in this suit from tati tati against without a crystal ball and the parties are more complex than that but i'm trying to keep shorthand that directly address [ __ ] that's said in the other lawsuit which led me to wonder really wonder if someone from the other business partner's camp is the person that's been talking to without a crystal ball and giving them information because there's a meshing of information from what's in that lawsuit and what is being said in the tati versus without a crystal ball lawsuit that that are the track very closely the timing is also really interesting for me but it's clear that the west brooks have been working on this suit for a while um this isn't something that is just gonna be whipped up overnight also there are lawyers somewhere that sat and watched a whole lot of without a crystal ball like they watched a lot of these videos because everything they're alleging is stuff that was said either in a video or a blog post so they're gonna pull all of those statements into court i have no reason to believe that the statements being pointed out they were not said by without a crystal ball it's whether what was said falls into the category of being defamation or the category of being commentary and that's really not for me to decide i'm going to tell you what defamation is i'm going to tell you what's alleged in this suit you're gonna tell me what you think if you want to down in the comments or of course i open up my text as my channel is gaining subscribers there was a little moment where i was like a girl are you sure you still want to open up your text and i'm like yep sure do sure do legal is a conversation and it's a conversation i'm here to have with you so i do open up my text the same way like garyvee does not that i'm on any level with garyvee but i'm just saying we use the same texting program that's the closeness of my entrepreneurial venue with garyvee that's it that's it that's the tie it is me texting i do text back and i keep you up to date with things as they're breaking and when my videos are going up and such because i know a lot of my subscribers don't always get the bell if you're not liked and subscribed go ahead and do that i'm going to be doing an episode on the podcast about this to break it down in a more succinct way but this is our like deep dive like a reaction plus a deep dive like tati actually did move to washington that's where they live now first reaction all right so let's get into this lawsuit and thank you all for being so interested in being like oh my god i love understanding legal can we talk about it more yes we can talk about it more i love talking about it too what's super interesting to me here is that this suit is starting with tatiana tati westbrook as a individual james westbrook as an individual and then halo beauty partners llc remember halo beauty partners is also suing tati westbrook so in the business partner lawsuit the clark swanson lawsuit clark is suing tati james and their other businesses we'll get to in a sec his company swanson global enterprises is suing and he's suing on behalf of halo beauty partners llc so halo beauty partners llc is suing halo beauty inc halo beauty inc nevada halo beauty partners llc toddy westbrook james westbrook toddy halo inc and toddy cosmetics inc so now we have tati as a person james as a person and halo beauty partners llc suing um katie joy paulson of without a crystal ball and the company she operates under without a crystal ball llc always like to see content creators being legit and running themselves through a company um but they are suing both her and her company which is not uncommon and not something that surprises me and until this is all proven in court someone's gonna have to decide a jury at the end of the day there's a jury demand on this um a jury could be the one deciding if these statements said are commentary or are defamatory that it really is not a question in this case of whether [ __ ] was said it's on video [ __ ] was said um it's really going to be a question of where the line is in context of these conversations and then if there's damages and if there's actual malice which we'll get into in a minute this is where that 5 million lawsuit is coming from i think when people are reporting that it's just they're alleging damages in that much so it it's a part of the jurisdiction it's why it's under jurisdiction it pulls it out of limited jurisdiction court but it's not a this is how much we're demanding that goes down in the prayers for relief at the very end of this which hold on we're scrolling we're scrolling we're scrolling prayers for relief at the end we're going gonna get to my notes prayers for relief prayers for relief just so we could all be clear we talk about it all at once summon an amount to be proven at trial which means we'll let a jury decide how much we're damaged based on everything we present at trial attorneys fees because hey um we wes brooks and halo have to sue you we asked you to knock it off you didn't knock it the [ __ ] off so now you owe us because we had to go ahead and sue you that's what layman's terms permanent and injunctive relief which is literally the legal version of take my name out of your mouth and i'm going to legally enjoin you from saying things about me that are false um interest which i love 12 interest if you don't pay what you're demanded to pay trouble damages can bolster the amount that you're owed it can multiply the amount that you're owed so that's the prayer for relief this is not a five million dollar lawsuit this is a you get your get my name out of your mouth stop talking [ __ ] about me that's false and not true that's what the suit's saying and a jury will determine how much the business or the individuals are damaged okay let's get into the actual suit you can you guys know what a nerd i was in law school i had to restrain myself to only do three colors in this this is your girl's law school notes looked like something from the [ __ ] home edit it was rainbow color coded my husband's like what's wrong with you but god i can't imagine if i had had if i had had an ipad pro in law school but i'm old as [ __ ] so i didn't it would have been glorious but i had this pen case with all that like would stand up on the desk with all my multi-colored pens i rolled to trial like that too with my pen case that folded down with all my multi-colored pens so when i was in trial i could highlight things in different color depending on what i needed them to be so or what i needed to remember them for like the purp their purpose i guess it's the right way to say that this lawsuit's written completely different than the other lawsuit as you'll recall the tati westbrook lawsuit starts out with this is a lawsuit caused by the defendant's greed the summary of the lawsuit here is a general allegation of fact um who tati is she's a personality celebrity influencer in defamation cases there are different standards or if you're a public person or a private person anyone who's put themselves onto a platform like this i think there is a very strong argument that they are a public persona i think it'd be very hard to argue that they're not i don't think that would fly in court they're not arguing here that any of the parties involved are not a public person um you know i think there's a little more of an argument as to james being a private person but even then he's appeared on tati's channel enough that i don't know if that argument would fly they're not exactly making that argument here though they might make that argument down the road i think it's safe to assume and for my purposes we're going to just put this under the public person law because there's more you have to prove in a defamation case if they're public individuals and that's absolutely what's going to be argued um from without a crystal ball for sure is like well they're they're in the public light so they're open to public commentary so tati has 9 million followers on youtube alone james is married to tati entrepreneur and business person many years successful business experience this lawsuit begs to differ halo is the company formed by tati and james nutraceuticals formulated to support hair skin and nails they didn't mention clark sure not mentioned in there just an observation upon information and belief because this is a suit written by the attorneys so the attorneys are saying it's our information and belief based on the research that we've done there is an ethical standard that lawyers adhere to when filing suits that said anyone can sue anyone for anything and this all has to be shaken out in court you can say the things but this is the reason you're saying this saying on information and belief and you're not seeing that in the other lawsuit with the business partner is because here let me just show you real quick is because this is a verified complaint in that scrolling scrolling scrolling if this makes your eyes crazy i'm so sorry my husband hates it when i do this [ __ ] when we're like shopping and i'm like no look um this has a sworn affidavit from the business partner attesting to the facts in the underlying lawsuit this lawsuit is filed without a sworn affidavit so you're going to see that upon information and belief language because it's the information that's been researched and relayed to the attorneys and the attorneys are the one making the assertion in the lawsuit so it's a difference between the two why you're going to see this different in language and the way things are couched is for that reason this is not tati and james didn't sign an affidavit and hear saying and then this and then this and then this so it's a little bit different defendant identifies herself as a pub to the public as a journalist upon information and belief defendants claim that pathos.com was defendant's former employer upon information and belief she was never employed by pathos.com and pathos.com cut whatever ties it had with her due to improper conduct including her propensity to maliciously public false and misleading information about third parties in her posting but the postings will come up later and things that she has allegedly said about the postings will come up later she um in this is always going to be katie joy paulson when i refer to toddy we're just gonna call her toddy so this will come back up later she is an internet blogger vlogger who makes and produces uploads drama or t videos internet posting on various internet platforms not limited to youtube and twitter because in this suit it breaks down [ __ ] that said on youtube and [ __ ] that said on twitter they're alleging that she intentionally and that's gonna go to what they have to prove for defamation that she intentionally publishes false and defamatory material and this is the purpose here to denigrate others through sensationalism and fabrication of perceived drama for the sole purpose of enticing followers and viewers to help defendants monetize help her monetize her pages and channels and various social media platforms so the allegation is that she's intentionally doing this to have the bigger stories and make more money off of the platforms but that language also goes to what needs to be proven in a defamation suit upon information and belief she intentionally engages again that's language that goes to defamation intentionally engages in being an internet troll under both her own name and pseudonyms for the purposes of harassment causing others consternation grief emotional distress damaging reputations well-beings and livelihoods upon information belief again this means this is all alleged defendant and they're suing her and her business so it's really just her but has a history of intentionally maliciously and or recklessly publishing false and misleading information about various people including plaintiffs she and her channel tout themselves as youtube personalities self-proclaimed internet trolls i mean if you've seen where she's called herself a troll i'd love to see it i haven't seen that i don't know where that's coming from but they're saying that without a crystal ball says that she's a troll with a professed obsession with plaintiffs in fact upon information and belief paulson has openly stated on her various platforms that she will not stop going after plaintiffs and has otherwise openly dared plaintiffs to sue her so that she can misuse the discovery process to inflict more damage upon them the video that i saw where she says things like the discoveries more damaging for them to to me what she said in that video from the parts that i have seen were that discovery's not going to look cute for them because in a defamation suit truth is an absolute defense so if they want to go there with a lawsuit and go there with the discovery then i get to ask if all of this is true that's really for me that's not misusing the discovery process for me that is that is the back and forth of discovery because if the allegation is you're saying [ __ ] that's not true part of her valid defense strategy is going to be uh right but it's true i'm going to be able to ask you to produce the things that will prove to me that the things i have said are true and that she's like you know if there are other videos where she's saying yeah i'm going to use discovery to get all the dirt on them please let me know that's not what i had seen but you saying in discovery i'm going to ask about all this stuff i wouldn't call that a misuse personal opinion i wouldn't call that a misuse but she did talk about discovery well i get to ask about this yeah you do you do get to ask about it and discovery is the process of gaining information from the other side and in the civil case it can be documents it can be text messages it can be emails it can be gosh just about anything you can think of but it can also be things called interrogatories which are a list of questions it's like question one and you sign them under oath so question one you know did you or did you not do all of this [ __ ] did you or did you not do all of this other [ __ ] did you or did you not say this [ __ ] was it not your intent to do this sometimes the other side will answer like this is not responsive this is overly broad this is vague but you submit those interrogatories to get all you get to do very probing questions to get all the information from the other side before you go to trial before you go to depositions and then you get to ask some questions and depositions it is a very it is a fact-finding process um and in the only video that i saw she was saying well if we're going to talk facts i'm going to find facts on you because if you're telling me it's not true then i get to dig for the facts that prove it is true so there you go they're characterizing this as defendant is infatuated with the concept of exposing plaintiffs and it appears that others who are currently unknown are conspiring with and or feeding defendants private and confidential information about plaintiffs for the purpose of harming plaintiffs i completely understand where they're getting that from because there is that live video where she is saying big stuff is coming about tati and she's she has background in for not information from a source and is sharing that she has background information from a source and it was background information that video was right around october 14th so what 15 days before this suit was filed and she said i found it in my notes so in the clearing a few things up about the tati james charles situation why i spoke out live stream from october 14th 2020 because a number of you were like she's talking about it in the live stream after the 31 minute and like 40 second mark she says and this is my summary of what's said in that video there are things behind the scenes that are happening right now related to tati and james westbrook and that will become public soon as soon as it becomes public i'll be able to share that information i assure you it's coming there is a huge issue happening with them and their business with them and their businesses are on the verge of imploding that's a direct quote verge of imploding and it all relates back to their history that they have and she talked about their history earlier in the video and i will get to that in the lawsuit because they talk about her saying that and just not necessarily following the rules there will be coming in the future um that will be coming in the future once it's public i promise i will share it i want to tell you who the source is but i don't want to ruin what's happening behind the scenes when you are in business with other people um and they aren't meeting that those business requirements things get messy and it's impacting the revenue streams of the business for their partners so she's talking about tati and james's business partner um 15 days ahead roughly of this lawsuit dropping which led me to the questions of who is letting her know this lawsuit is coming because somebody's letting her know this lawsuit is coming that was my that was my pondering because there are things in the current lawsuit that line up with things that are in the business partner lawsuit it's curious to me in may 2019 defendants stated publicly in a youtube video james charles cancer sisters tour intended to target tati saying she was going to expose tati as retribution for what defendants perceived as tati's alleged mistreatment of another internet personality i didn't watch the video i couldn't find all the videos i'm also not watching all the videos because what i'm going to do is break down the law behind this and you guys who have seen the videos can let me know what you think and how you characterize it because it's i want to help you understand the law behind this not really just give you the oh i think this will fly i think this won't fly because i don't think that's the most helpful it goes on that defendants obsessively fixated on tati and her family to ruin her good name and reputation the name and reputation stuff plays into the legal foundation for a defamation case and they intentionally damaged everyone around tati again language that goes directly to defamation defendants intentionally harassed and maligned plaintiffs and otherwise maliciously portrayed them in a false light and sought to financially harm them this paragraph 22 just sets up what all of the different causes of actions are down below this language sets up why the different chart charges what the different causes of actions are and why they are uh defendants even went so far to tell their social media followers that tati and james are demons defendants have devoted at least 40 youtube videos to discussing plaintiffs since may 2019. it it is a lot of videos someone's job was to watch all of these videos and time stamp them i'm sure they're all recorded downloaded categorized because if i was working on this case that's exactly what i would do before the case came up because there's always the consideration that someone could private delete and remove things which is really what they want in the first place and what they've asked her to do in the first place and apparently what james charles has asked her to do is remove videos relating to tati so they go through the different videos what they're titled and when they were published all of them that have different defamatory statements in them according to this suit you can see that there's a lot of them there they said there were 40 and there are um but these are running right up look at these these are running right up to now october 28th 2020 october 28th 2020 october 28th 2020 october 29th 2020 october 29th 2020 october 29th 2020. like this is running up to the day this lawsuit is filed which is october 30th 2020. so they were working right up until they filed this suit something tipped something tipped the edge of we just have to put a stop to it now i'm sure that they were tracking these videos from when they sent the first cease and desist whenever that was um without a crystal ball mentioned there had been four the westbrook's have and their lawyers have been tracking this since then um in one of her videos without a crystal ball says this has been going on for like 18 months so we know that this has been tracked something in the recent videos either caused the change or the other lawsuit became the tipping point because this lawsuit was filed again october 20th so then 10 days later we have the other one was that lawsuit the tipping point for this were there things in that lawsuit that went you know this is just enough i don't know but there are things in this lawsuit that speak to stuff that's in the other lawsuit which apparently is stuff that without a crystal ball has also been talking about in her videos which is interesting so this gets into intentionally injure yes we know it's a defamation suit malice there has to be intent behind it defamed and disparaged tati james and halo my question about this is are tati and james paying for this lawsuit as individuals is halo paying for this lawsuit because they are a plaintiff so is this being run through the business is this a way of showing perhaps that tati and james are upholding their duties to halo because they are acting to protect the company's brand reputation through bringing a lawsuit like this because the other lawsuit alleges that they're not upholding their duties to halo beauty so is this one way to show that they are upholding their their obligations to protect halo beauty's reputation it's an interesting question i don't know the we're not gonna know the answer to that so those are questions that were kind of rolling around in my mind of stuff that i was like huh it would be interesting to know these things they are further alleging that the videos all mentioned above have hundreds of thousands if not millions of views so they're broadly they're published and they're broadly published that the posts are improper they've been published to the general public they are false and disparaging statements of fact that there are also public published articles and i highlighted these in blues because these go to the actual statements so before we get to the statements let's talk a minute about what defamation is and what defamation is not and the thing i hear a lot right now is like well it's free speech we have our free speech rights and i've heard that from like tati in her breaking my silence video talks about free speech i've heard without a crystal ball say it in her videos it's free speech generally free speech goes to the fact that the government can't shut down speech there is a government actor component involved in private life and between private actors and in this case public figures i'm lumping into non-government actors if you say something another person can stop you from saying it if what you say is illegal so there are yes you can say whatever you want you can say whatever you want but there can be consequences there can be criminal threats statutes there can be things like defamation which break down into libel and slander the two different types of defamation but you can say whatever you want within the bounds of that [ __ ] has to be illegal making certain types of threats are illegal you sure say it if you want but then there will be consequences so versus like the government affirmatively shutting down speech a book can't be published a person can't say that a platform can't exist those would be proactive shutdowns in our non-government private lives you can say what you want to say but also someone can sue you for that [ __ ] if it's illegal and that's where this lawsuit is going to break down over if the speech is actual valid commentary if it's not commentary if it's fair criticism or if there's no malice or if there's no damage defamation suits are hard to prove against public actors because there are a lot of components that the plaintiff has the burden of showing so the defendant plays defense it's like prove prove it prove it prove it and the plaintiff has to prove with regard to defamation that the defendant the person being sued made a false and unprivileged statement privileged means protected in some way we'll get to that in a minute caused harm to the plaintiff through the statements acted with reckless disregard for the truth by making the statements and this is general defamation there can be quirks in the state of washington this is general defamation and we're not look we're not here for a law school exam yeah we're here to understand why the [ __ ] that's said can or cannot be problematic and then with regard to public figures you have to show actual malice breaks down legally to generally mean that the thing published was knowingly false like i knew it's false i don't give a [ __ ] and or with a disregard for it being false like well yeah i don't i don't really care if it's true or not like i'm not investigating it it seems fine so either they have to show either without a crystal ball knew something was false or just didn't care if it was false that's how that breaks down into actual malice now with defamation per se which is the second part of defamation because in defamation you have to show harm which can be financial harm with defamation per se you don't have to prove actual damages so there are some statements that can be so offending and problematic that it's just like no this is just on its face defamation because of what was said so you don't have to prove that there was actual damages physical financial what have you and some of those statements are the things like calling somebody a criminal calling somebody a fraudster um those types of statements and there is case law that sets out those statements but those types of statements can be defamation just on their face if there's also trade libel in this cage which is like defamation but a business so that's where halo comes into this that it's an untrue statement that it's um knowingly false or reckless disregard for the truth that causes a loss of business or loss of business reputation and that the losses and losses in future business have to be proven so you have to show that and that becomes one of the really hard things to do in a defamation suit and the statement must have been more than a statement of opinion it must have been made as a statement of fact so it must be said like it is a fact not like it is a oh well i think this is like i think this is crap it has to be like this is damaging this is crap not well i think it's terrible and we'll get to what those statements are in this so defamation defamation per se trade libel are kind of our big three causes of action the others are false light invasion of privacy which is making someone look bad putting them in a false light that and the plaintiff in that case has to show that they were the person that the publication was made and you'll see some of that as we get into the the um causes of action and the other statements of fact that they're making clear that tati was the one that was being referred to or that the company was what was being referred to because the plaintiff has to prove that they were the one being talked about they have to prove that a um reasonable person would find it highly offensive so you'll see that language of highly offensive come up because it has to be proven that it is and that the defendant knew or recklessly disregarded that the statement was false and um and again that actual malice so actual malice because tati's a public person showing that it was published knowing it was false or was published with reckless disregard to whether or not it was false and intentional infliction of emotional distress being that the outrageous and extreme conduct caused emotional distress and that it was severe the negligent infliction of emotional distress means that the conduct was just negligent not extreme or outrageous which you're going to need in that intentional infliction but this is negligent inflection that the person saying the [ __ ] was the cause of the harm of the emotional distress which could be problematic in this case because there was a lot going on during some of this time period with dramageddon so tying back the emotional harm directly to this channel might be challenging but we'll see and then there needs to be evidence of objective symptoms of distress severe emotional distress so they have to show there was that severe emotional distress and when i talked about watching tati's breaking my silence video after the 32-minute mark in that video she talks about jeffree star making statements that were defamatory and cowardly shane dawson making statements that were defamatory and cowardly and that her attorneys are going to depose everyone who was involved but also that and this was slightly before that point that since this happened that she has lost weight that she can't sleep that she wanted to pursue fertility treatments in 2019 but has been too frail because of it but in those statements she seems to be referencing the jeffree star series and her own involvement with dramageddon and the fallout from that now whether behind the scenes she loops in these videos to part of what made that time so difficult time will tell and we we may or may not see depending on how this proceeds but she does talk about those physical side effects that are going to come into this um emotional distress and infliction of emotional distress and then we get into washington consumer protection act unfair methods and competitive unfair practices that's really going towards the business stuff and defaming the business there's statements about the halo product that we'll get to and then civil harassment's the last cause of action which is a pattern of conduct essentially harassing somebody um knowingly and willfully taking a course of conduct directed at a specific person which seriously harms a noise harasses or is detrimental to such a person which serves no legitimate or lawful purpose again is it commentary and reporting or is it not and that's that turns on serves no legitimate or lawful purpose so that the course of conduct shall be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress and have actually caused them to suffer substantial emotional distress so that'll get into a therapist a medical practitioner someone talking about and tati herself potentially talking about the saphir um emotional distress and we do see some of that in her video on breaking my silence where she talks about some of these side effects some of this emotional distress she's i know when i told you how to grab a snack you're like girl i'm going to take you up on it now all right without a crystal ball published articles concerning plaintiffs on pathos.com including a june 3rd article entitled the criminal background tati and james westbrook are hiding from millions and it goes through that tati does not have a criminal background so now we're calling tatia criminal she doesn't have a criminal background so the article is grossly misleading and defamatory that the statement in the article that james has a lengthy criminal rap sheet and then discusses an arrest in 1989 and 1990 and that the article fails to show any evidence that tatia and james have taken affirmative steps to hide such matters so the title is hiding from millions imp implying nefarious action instead of james westbrook has a criminal record that we didn't know about so the issue there being the title and then what is posted later then it gets into the fact that the article states james has never been successful in business this is arguing then that that can be damaging to his reputation though we did see this alluded to in the other lawsuit which is interesting complaint here seeks to say that that's false so they affirmatively state james's businesses over the years have been very successful including his current business that defendants attempt to attack for their success as such the false generalization regarding james's entire history as a businessman in the blog is defamatory again watch the other video where we talk about how the business partner lays out james's business success prior to the launch of halo but this is a june 2019 article so this is after that launch of halo which was according to the other suit successful enough that in two years the investors had each received over four million dollars that's by three people so there was success there based on the numbers provided in the other lawsuit there is an indication that there was success there so this goes directly to and we're going to get into it this goes directly to the hawaii lawsuit that is brought up in the business partner suit so we're going to go to what the business partner suit says and then we'll come back to this because i found this very interesting and i think that you will too plaintiff is informed and believes there upon in 2016 mr westbrook was ordered to pay his sister's legal fees after she was forced to go to court to stop him from trying to sell his late mother's home and abscond with the pros uh the prophets and then it cites the case here so this lawsuit portrays that lawsuit as he tried to he tried to sell his late mother's home and abscond with the profits take the profits and that he was ordered to pay legal fees the he westbrook was ordered to pay legal fees generally in a lawsuit when legal fees are ordered to be paid it's because you've lost so this suit indicates through the language used that james westbrook would have lost that suit and then for this because he had to pay legal fees the new suit against without a crystal ball says that that's not true and says upon information and belief again the article also reiterates as conclusive fact remember not opinion as conclusive fact obviously false statements found in an unsuccessful lawsuit filed in hawaii regarding the inheritance of james's mother's estate had a valid investigation been performed it would have been discovered that the lawsuit was filed by james as a strange sister who was expressly disinherited by their respective mother many years prior due to said sister having previously sued their mother when their stepfather died in an attempt to challenge the inheritance of a surviving spouse after repeating the salacious and unproven allegations by his estranged sister defendants conclude this is without a crystal ball concludes as fact not opinion that james defrauded his family the statement is an obvious malicious and blatant lie published solely to inflict damage upon tati and james and ignores that said lawsuit was settled by said a state being divided amongst the family members and that attorney's fees were ordered to be paid from the proceeds of the estate not from james so it's interesting to me the mischaracterization in the article published on june 3rd is the same characterization that is in the business partner's lawsuit because if they pulled up this lawsuit and read it they should be able to discover if this is the actual statement of fact so is the business partner reiterating what he found online because then he also says additional online reports are that mr westbrook has been convicted of serious drug crimes well that's what's in this article that's this article that's what this article is talking about it's interesting to me that it seems that the two have a lot of similarities in the way that they're stating facts against tati and james because if the lawsuit was pulled and this is true this would be easy to discover because it would all be in the case file of what happened when that lawsuit was resolved so that same article says tati westbrook's vitamin line was not selling the way she hoped which is misleading and maliciously false this is going to go towards the business side of things as the vitamin line more than exceeded expectations and tati only lamented that the launch of the line could have gone more smoothly the statement in the article that the purpose of transitioning tati's business in 2019 from an llc to a corporation was to protect her assets from legal issues in connection with the james charles fallout is false and was made recklessly and without regard for the truth the fact remains that llcs provide the same asset protection as corporations true story as such the only purpose of making a statement is to intentionally portray tati in a false light pulling back see we're seeing how it all connects to this is written to connect back to the causes of action by attributing a nefarious purpose associated with the transition of our corporate structure it goes on that there's a statement in that article that james charles has lost millions of dollars as a direct result of his relationship with plaintiffs is false and even mr charles himself expressly stated that his tour was canceled for reasons unrelated to the plaintiff so again this is the statement here is put here to to highlight or to make it seem that that without a crystal ball is trying to portray the west brooks in a light that being associated with them can cost you money same article harms tati and james's reputation and halo's future business by falsely asserting defamatory statements and that by publishing these falsehoods plaintiffs have been outrageously defamed remember we talked about the language that you have to prove the statements made about plaintiffs amount to a false assertion that they are engaging in current criminal conduct which is defamatory on its face so that's that defamatory per se charge that is cause of action that is down below saying look some of these statements are so defamatory on their face we don't have to prove financial harm because the statement themselves is assumed to be harmful so then you don't have to prove the damages bit which is a very hard bit to prove in defamation that's why this language is here about defamatory on its face hopefully we're still interested i know it's a long one um they go into additional defamatory false and misleading statements again we're seeing this language stated as fact not opinion that tati's channel is tanking that she's blaming youtube this is in march 2020 that she's not honest and she's not properly disclaiming products she's using by ftc standards which is the the standards being referred to here are that if you are using products or have affiliate links and things like that if it's an ad you have to just close those things there's a june 16th video beauty influencer sends my boss a letter i need to go find that very curious but apparently without a crystal ball says in that video that she recklessly failed to verify the veracity of the false and misleading statements made about plaintiffs and said quote i might have rushed it to be honest i may have rushed it a little bit pieces i didn't have it all together um and stated that her videos might have been disruptive to dots and james's lives so if that's in the video that will obviously come into court to give context to this willful or at least reckless standard that tati and james and halo beauty will have to prove and this goes into some of those other per se statements her husband's a career con artist june 2019 he hasn't changed he stole money from his dying mother if the recitation of facts of that case the hawaii case and here are true then this statement's going to be problematic um took out loans in her name while she was ill and then stole 340 000 from a lender in california he has a long history of crimes her husband is a career criminal and a scammer he stole money from his dying mother in a june 2nd 2019 video or no this was twitter saying that two con artists who destroyed james charles reputation so they could pay off debt some of you were sending me information that stuff on twitter was being deleted if the lawyers went through and saw this i'm sure they are all screenshotted somewhere y'all are up on it so if it's happening on twitter i know you all will know one of the goals here is to take these statements down that's part of the injunctive relief sought she's lying and she's selling snake oil these kind of snake oil comments are going to go towards the defamation but also towards the business libel because now you're attacking a product in a negative light and a derogatory light taught saying tati has a consistent reputation of fooling people into believing that she's very trustworthy and then she's done a lot of untrustworthy things that she sells drunk vitamins i couldn't find this video i went to go look for it because i was curious about this um the past uh james and tati westbrook don't want you to know which is allegedly saying i just want you to keep in mind she's been accused of selling snake oil and after everything i've done i can say without a doubt her product is snake oil she's manipulating her followers into buying these products and promising results that have zero testing to show that they do anything let's just say tanti brags that he's a self-made um i'll bet when you're stealing money from your family it's self-made all right there's a lot there but also tati's alleged to have said in the other lawsuit that she could sell a total [ __ ] product to her followers and put whatever name she wants so it's interesting to me how some of the allegations in these two are similar and this goes on and on with different statements october 14th 2020 this was the video i was talking about this is the one where it seems that without a crystal ball hat is talking to someone who's connected to that other lawsuit saying that the business is on the verge of imploding that it all relates back to that history they have of not necessarily following the rules i mean there's other shade in that video but there are more and more statements that same video after receiving a phone call yesterday i felt sick to my stomach tati westbrook and james charles used me in their quest to take down jeffree star um it's interesting because in tati's breaking my silence video she does talk about jeffree star being problematic and she does talk about the fact that jeffrey might blow up after all this comes up a video i made on his court cases infuriated him to the point where they sent someone to my inbox to threaten me let's just say i wasn't wrong without a crystal ball does have a video up talking about james charles coming into her dms asking her to take videos down and one of the dms she put up was james charles saying like look i know you hate them so i think a lot of that is going to play in here where it comes to the maliciousness like was there real intent here or is it just reporting on the facts like hey i think these people are doing stuff that's shady and i think i have proof of that and i'm going to show you the proof i have and let's see if you draw the same conclusion the stating things as conclusionary is where things can become problematic this gets into more of what james star was saying they need the internet scrubbed of tati and her husband's wrong during wrongdoings before they can go after jeffree star so once all the evidence gone so they can pin it on jeffree star and on and on and on this is an interesting statement this is from october 28 2020 again stated as fact stated is fact not opinion is going to be in all of these that it quote it seems the westbrook attempts to remove blogs by without a crystal ball could have been done to mislead business partners and potentially hide fraudulent activity from investors so there's that the lawsuit accuses james westbrook of liquidating hundreds of thousands of dollars of halos beauty's assets on october 10 2020 and the as the west brooks learned about the case effectively devaluing the company now this lawsuit is referencing stuff that without a crystal ball said about the other lawsuit and the other lawsuit alleges the business partner lawsuit says most recently as a result of mr swanson's demand that the west brooks keep their agreements with him james westbrook without mr swanson's authorization distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in operating income from the halo beauty partners llc operating accounts to its members it doesn't say it's not tall members mr swanson is informed and believes and alleges that this is a further attempt attempt to devalue and destroy halo butting by looting company coffers in advance of a lawsuit and we talked about that but what that doesn't say is that the lawsuit accuses james of liquidating hundreds of thousands of dollars and devaluing the company so it is distinction because it's an attempt to devalue not effectively devaluing this this is the level of nitpicky that we're down to here but there's a difference between attempting to devalue and effectively devaluing and this is where words when we're talking about legal stuff where words can really very much matter and and words have meaning in these contexts these are more statements from october 28th on twitter tati isn't scared for her life because of james char uh jeffree star she and her husband are unloading their assets and trying to dodge their business responsibilities that's a more problematic statement they don't want anything in their name because they are on the hook for millions to clark swanson more twitter statements um jeff james charles tati abused you once and used you a second time cut ties now without a crystal ball admitted on july 2nd 2020 that they removed statements from articles written about plaintiffs that were blatantly false after receiving a letter from plaintiff's council let's just talk about the lawsuit plaintiff's business partner followed a lawsuit defendants posted on twitter saying that they were tipped off by the suit by a source who asked us to break the story so again when the things feel closely aligned and there's that video from october 14th where without a crystal ball saying i know things behind the scenes this is going to back up she knew things behind the scenes because in this suit they're alleging that there are other people that they want to bring into this suit that are assisting with the defamation that's at the very top that we talked about 100 million years ago so they are in this suit going to be looking for who those people are giving her information and she is going to have to at some point say this is who told me this and this is why i had a belief that it was true information and then is going to have to evaluate the person who said it the speaker to see if this is true information because she's saying a lot of this came from a source other than the statements she's making the snake oil statements and stuff but saying i have a source okay well at some point how do we verify the veracity if you're saying well i thought it was true because they said okay well who's they and what did they say is part of where these lines of questioning may go when we get into discovery and depositions in the i was right about everything video i get why james and tati westbrook have been wanting my stuff off the internet they didn't want their business partner to see what he was involved in though it seems from the other suit that the time that these things are being alleged were after the time when that business venture started in the fall of 2016 when mr swanson his friends james james westbrook and then girlfriend tati um developed the nutraceuticals that then became halo so this goes back to 2016. this isn't alleging things back that far but it's still a statement to dissuade or to imply that people shouldn't be doing business with them so then we go down through um a whole bunch of other statements they were broke when they launched halo no credit when they launched halo no money when they launched halo no bank accounts and all of this but the lawsuit indicates some of these things but not in this way so when the other lawsuit says that mr swanson says um they have a poor credit history they used personal credit that doesn't mean they didn't have bank accounts that doesn't mean they were broke that only means they had a poor credit history a personal bankruptcy and they relied on swanson's credit to secure lending that's all that it means it doesn't mean they had no credit they had no money they had no bank accounts so when we take the statements from the lawsuit and extrapolate them to mean other things is when this can become problematic and that's this these statements are not what's in the other lawsuit these are derived assumptions stated as fact as they're presented here from the other lawsuit and that james liquidated all the cash in halo's bank accounts and paid it out to members without knowledge of the partners rendering halo worthless again we already pulled that part of the other lawsuit that's not what's said in the other lawsuit and it's not said that it's without the member's knowledge it was out without authorization so there are distinctions that do matter it's not a distinction without a difference there are distinctions between what was said and what's said in the lawsuit that matters which is why when you're speaking on lawsuits stick to what's alleged in the lawsuit and say this is the lawsuit it alleges this stuff and then the lawsuit goes in to point out that these things are not true so this gets into liquidating the mom's home that there's not a shred of truth to that defendants portrayed james in a false light that they knew the statement was untrue because he couldn't even obtain a reverse mortgage that they said he was using so many reverse mortgages is what they're saying here and that that's false and that they knew it was false we talked about the other lawsuit this directly answers it the allegation the statement is false on several levels the swanson complaint says no such thing let me back up upon information and belief defendants falsely stated in the i was right about everything video that tati and james liquidated all of halo's cash in advance of a lawsuit being filed this statement's false on some levels the swanson complaint says no such thing the complaint alleges that halo issued a distribution and says nothing about the distribution leaving the bank accounts without cash second the statement's absolutely false the truth is that halo merely went through a standard routine end of financial quarter distribution it was just the end of the quarter a fact in which clark took part and which left significant sums in the company's operating account to cover current operating expenses this statement was made for the sole purpose of defaming tati and james and portraying them in a false light moreover the lawsuit does not state the funds were paid without mr swanson's knowledge the lawsuit says he objected to it such quarterly withdrawals of funds did not render halo worthless nor does the swanson complaint make such a claim we just went through that complaint you can decide for yourself how you feel about that businesses do make quarterly distributions we just ended prior to this lawsuit ended q3 went into q4 so we'll see but this is again where interpreting and extrapolating from the language in that suit without sticking to the language of the suit becomes problematic ah i said it was coming up stating that tatia and james listed their house for sale because they wanted to get rid of assets if they lose the swanson lawsuit i will answer questions at another time about what lawsuits and payout of lawsuits and filing of bankruptcy because i saw the questions about what how those things play together in a general way but making assumptions that they are selling a house so that swanson can't get to their money is a broad leap but these statements are objectionable in this lawsuit because they're saying that a they didn't liquidate b tati and james were not selling the house for nefarious purposes they moved to the state of washington it's making that one step leap that it's oh they're selling a house not because they move but oh they're doing it to avoid liability or hide assets or something like that it's where this lawsuit is saying that they think that that's problematic the lawsuit goes on to say this is absolutely false you can't liquidate the whole suit um tati and james moved and became permanent residents in washington in 2019 and the defendant knew that because she's talked about them moving in her videos this was interesting to me that again plaintiffs have requested defendant take down the false and misleading defamatory videos defendants have refused to remove the videos and tweets and have continued to publish false and defamatory content so they have requested it to be removed it hasn't been removed and that's why we're all here the defendants have continued and have not stopped that they've acted in concert with others this is getting into that conversation of who's feeding the information and who else is helping with if this you know alleged campaign against the west brooks who else is there so this is getting into discovering who that other party is so they can be brought into the lawsuit and then we get to the causes of action restating the facts above saying these are the facts that go to this cause of action we cover defamation um that it causes financial harm and emotional distress that it negatively impacts their business um and this was interesting to me so by refusing to take down the defamatory post currently on multiple platforms defendants continue to make false and misleading statements upon information and belief they are intended to carry out a smear campaign against plaintiffs monthly revenues of plaintiffs began declining and has continued to decline month over month since defendant's campaign of malice and defamation commenced here's where i see trouble with this because isn't that also around the same time that tati took a break from youtube didn't didn't the videos start i mean the videos alleged here are starting around the time of the buy sister scandal in october 2019 and a little bit before that so parsing out what has come from tati being off of youtube from that by sister scandal from the fallout after that and what belongs to without a crystal ball i think can be difficult here i think some of the statements are definitely problematic but i also think that breaking out how complex this situation is because there was so much going on i think will be difficult to prove that it was these statements that caused this harm and that's where proving damages in defamation cases can be difficult it doesn't mean that this case can't go on for five years be a giant pain in the ass for everyone involved and cost them a [ __ ] ton of money because that absolutely can't happen it also doesn't mean that this case can't be resolved out of court saying fine i'll take these down if you drop this lawsuit so we're not gonna be in court for years on end and spend [ __ ] tons of money on lawyers fees we're just gonna say fine we'll take it down and you'll stop your lawsuit and we'll sort it out however we sorted out will that happen i don't know i mean be without a crystal ball can say no i'm reporting prove it you sued me you have to prove it and prove that it damaged you absolutely can happen so this is that 2019 june 16 2019 video um where she admitted that she may have rushed publication of false defamatory statements that's going to come up a lot in this because it goes to that willing or at least reckless disregard for the truth and then as a direct result they have been shunned avoided or injured in their business proving that again is going to be the difficult is the direct and proximate result defamation per se we talked about means that the thing itself the words themselves are defamatory without proving harm so this cause of action you don't have to prove was it toddy stopping on youtube was it this was it that you don't have to prove the direct damages because the words themselves are the problem so this count cause of action has a different twist to it and that goes to um james with all of these statements again long history of crimes career criminal and scammer engaged in fraud shady background these are the defamation per se with regard to tati these are the statements defamation per se snake con artist selling snake oil divoting lenders and then with regard to the vitamins themselves manipulating its customers stealing from other companies harmful to human health trade libel again is going into the defamation towards the company same thing you have to prove the damages false light invasion of property uh privacy same same thing different nature um as defamation it's just casting it in a different way with different things that you prove we already talked about that earlier in the video but again this statement that she might have rushed it is going to keep coming up we talked about the emotional um distress extreme and outrageous as part of what has to be proven in that cause that the statements with regard to this is that tati's a liar defrauded investors and that the outcome is that tati and james have suffered emotional distress mental anguish and then breaking down those types of mental anguish same with negligent of infliction of emotional distress you don't have to prove that outrageousness you just have to prove that it's disregarding the truth this gets into the same fact pattern same harm consumer protection act goes into the business statements and then the civil harassment was the totality of the circumstances with the intent to expose or embarrass and getting into those statements and then asking for an injunction here to stop it from happening which means an injunction like a court ordered you can't say [ __ ] and then we've already covered the prayer for relief y'all i was a long one thank you for hanging with me if i didn't say it earlier i appreciate you i appreciate you having the conversation with me about the legal if you have questions for sure drop them in the comments i will be doing a q a video where i answer some of those to break down the legal a bit more if you have comments i'm always open to having a conversation if you haven't liked and subscribed please do and don't forget to check out the get legit launch it podcast both here on youtube and on your favorite podcast player because it's where i break things down not in such a long format most of the time but the legal topics that you want to talk about the news stories you want to talk about the legal tea you want to talk about i break it all down because breaking [ __ ] down's my favorite thank you for hanging with me and i am sure that we have not seen the end of this so i'll be here and if there's anything else you want me to cover you're always welcome to shoot me a dm hit me up on social media i'm at the emily debaker everywhere you're always welcome to text me i will see you in the next one thank you for hanging with me friends