Margarita Smith v. Yvonne Markgraf And Ron Stoer

CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedDecember 9, 2019
Docket78948-1
StatusUnpublished

This text of Margarita Smith v. Yvonne Markgraf And Ron Stoer (Margarita Smith v. Yvonne Markgraf And Ron Stoer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Margarita Smith v. Yvonne Markgraf And Ron Stoer, (Wash. Ct. App. 2019).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

MARGARITA SMITH, ) No. 78948-1-I ) Appellant, ) DIVISION ONE

v. ) UNPUBLISHED OPINION ) YVONNE MARKGRAF and RON ) STOEHR, individually and as a marital ) community, ) Respondent. ) FILED: December 9, 2019 HAZELRIGG-HERNANDEZ, J. — Margarita Smith sued Yvonne Markgraf and

Ron Stoehr1 after a dispute arose from an appointment to clean Markgraf and

Stoehr’s home. As a result of the dispute, Markgraf posted an unflattering review

of Smith’s company on Yelp, which she revised several times. The majority of

Smith’s claims were dismissed on Markgraf and Stoehr’s summary judgment and

CR 12(b)(6) motions and the court denied Smith’s request for a permanent

injunction. Because one of Smith’s claims falls outside the scope of the Consumer

Protection Act2 and because she failed to allege facts sufficient to survive the

challenges of defense motions as to her remaining claims, we affirm.

1 Smith’s pleadings misspell his last name as Stoer. 2 Chapter 19.86, RCW. No. 78948-1-1/2

FACTS

In May 2015, Yvonne Markgraf called Margarita Smith to make an

appointment for BioMaids to come clean her home a week later. The parties

agreed on a 1 p.m. appointment and an hourly rate of $40 per employee. Smith

was late the day of the cleaning and tried to call to let Markgraf know, however the

number she had was incorrect. Smith was eventually able to call Markgraf and

inform her she would be at the house no earlier than 2:30 p.m. When Smith arrived

at 2:40 p.m., she was shown the home and began cleaning.

BioMaids employee, Kalaya Eckle, arrived at 3:30 p.m. and joined Smith in

cleaning. After the kitchen was cleaned, Smith heard someone in Markgraf’s

family cooking in the kitchen and playing the piano in the dining room. Eckle broke

a candle, but Markgraf did not accept her offer to pay for it since it would come out

of Eckle’s own pay check. At 6:30 p.m. Markgraf and her children left to go to a

school function. Markgraf’s partner, Ron Stoehr, arrived at 6:50 p.m. and told

Smith and Eckle that they needed to leave. Smith asked for more time and Stoehr

agreed they could stay for one more hour. Smith and Eckle stopped cleaning at 8

p.m. and left an invoice totaling $380.

Soon after, Markgraf emailed Smith letting her know she did not agree to

the $380 charge and that she would pay her $300 as Smith had been late, a candle

was broken, and areas had been left uncleaned. Smith offered to pay for the

candle but insisted the full amount was due. They exchanged a number of emails

in their dispute over the charges, including the quality and scope of cleaning.

-2- No. 78948-1 -1/3

In June 2015, Markgraf sent Smith a check for $300 and wrote a review

about her BioMaids experience on Yelp.3 The review on Yelp gave BioMaids a

one star rating and included such statements as:

• ‘[Smith] arrived over 3 hours late.” • “[T]hey never touched the basement.” • “They left the master bed dusty, the beds short sheeted, the hardwood floors on the main floor so dirty I had to mop them, cobwebs left on lighting fixtures.” • “I am sure they used only water to clean with.” • “She instead looked up my personal email address (that I did not disclose to her or communicate with her from).” • “I also heard [Smith] talking to [her] helper in a completely unprofessional and mean manner, that upset me.”

Markgraf also wrote a similar review on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website

in June 2016. Further emails were exchanged and Smith posted a response to

the review on Yelp. Smith did not cash Markgraf’s check and demanded that she

pay through an online portal. Markgraf said the portal was not functional, but

ultimately was able to pay $270 online.

In October 2015, Smith filed a small claim against Markgraf for “libelious

[sic] statements posted on [the] internet” and sought damages of $5000. Markgraf

filed a counterclaim alleging damage to her stainless steel refrigerator and seeking

$2100 in damages. The court dismissed Smith’s defamation claim for lack of

jurisdiction and awarded Markgraf $1574.99 in damages for the refrigerator. The

small claims judgment against Smith was reversed by the superior court on appeal.

Markgraf’s Yelp review was updated three times prior to Smith refiling the case in

superior court. The last review by Markgraf was in January 2017. That review

~ A website and cell phone application utilized as a business directory, online reservation services and collection of crowd-sourced business reviews.

-3- No. 78948-1 -114

increased the Biomaids rating to five stars and attributed the rating increase to the

lawsuit Smith had initiated. Markgraf also outlined the chronology of the litigation

over the dispute.

Smith’s new suit against Markgraf and Stoehr in superior court alleged: 1)

defamation per se, 2) five separate claims of defamation (one for each version of

the Yelp review and one for the BBB review), 3) false light, 4) violation of the

Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 5) breach of contract, and 6) intentional infliction

of emotional distress. Smith sought both money damages and injunctive relief.

The defamation per se claim and CPA claims were dismissed under CR 12(b)(6)

on Markgraf’s motion. The defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress,

and false light claims were dismissed at summary judgment, again on Markgraf’s

motion. Smith then accepted a settlement offer as to the breach of contract claim,

but did not abandon her claim to injunctive relief. The trial court dismissed that

request as there was no surviving claim that could have supported an injunction.

Smith timely appealed, assigning error to the dismissal of her claims and

request for injunctive relief.

ANALYSIS

I. Claims Dismissed on CR 12(b)(6) Motion

In reviewing a trial court’s dismissal of a claim under CR 12(b)(6), we apply

a de novo standard. Tenore v. AT & T Wireless Servs., 136 Wn.2d. 322, 329-30,

962 P.2d 104 (1998). A dismissal under CR 12(b)(6) “is appropriate only if it

appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff cannot prove any set of facts which would

-4- No. 78948-1 -1/5

justify recovery.” jçL at 330. “[A] plaintiff’s allegations are presumed to be true and

a court may consider hypothetical facts not included in the record.” k~.

A. Defamation Per Se Claim

A defamation per se claim requires that the statement at issue “(1) exposes

a living person to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, to deprive him of the benefit

of public confidence or social intercourse, or (2) injures him in his business, trade,

profession or office.” Caruso v. Local Union No. 690 of Int’l Bhd. Of Teamsters,

100 Wn.2d 343, 353, 670 P.2d 240 (1983).

In Life Designs Ranch, Inc. v. Sommer, Division Three of this court upheld

a summary judgment dismissal of a defamation per se claim. 191 Wn. App. 320,

364 P.3d 129 (2015). In Life Designs, a father sent his son to a substance abuse

aftercare program for young adults. After a dispute with the program over billing,

the father created a spoof website, lifedesignsranchinc.com, on which he

published numerous statements about the program. at 326-27. The website’s

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