Lawsuit Over Social Media Allegations of Hair Accessory Design Theft (with a Race Dimension) Can Go Forward

From today’s decision by Judge Ann Aiken (D. Ore.) in Owen v. Askew, the allegations from plaintiff’s complaint:

Plaintiff Kursten Owen is an Oregon resident and is the owner of Elegance & Geekery, LLC, an Oregon business. Elegance & Geekery sells accessories and had gross receipts of $190,310 in 2024. Relevant to the present case, Plaintiff makes and sells hair accessories through Elegance & Geekery and has done so for eight years.

Defendant Breana Askew, dba Breromi, is a resident of Georgia. Like Plaintiff, Ms. Askew makes and sells hair accessories. Ms. Askew also has a large social media following.

Defendant Kiandria Demone Boyce is a civil rights activist who resides in Georgia. Ms. Boyce also has a large social media following, which Plaintiff alleges Ms. Boyce “weaponizes” in order to engage in “cyberbullying.” Ms. Boyce is alleged to have “previously engaged in online campaigns wherein she leverages her online following in order to orchestrate the filing of mass public complaints to third party sites such as GiveSendGo/Square in order to compel the companies to act in a certain way.” Unlike Ms. Askew or Plaintiff, Ms. Boyce is not alleged to be involved in the hair accessory business.

On July 14, 2025, Ms. Askew saw a promotional video for Plaintiff’s hair clips and came to believe that Plaintiff’s hair clip designs were copied from those produced by Ms. Askew. Plaintiff alleges that the design and construction of her hair clips are materially different from those made and sold by Ms. Askew. Plaintiff asserts that she developed this design independently and from scratch.

Beginning on the evening of July 14, 2025, Ms. Askew began posting comments on Plaintiff’s business’s social media pages accusing Plaintiff of infringing on Ms. Askew’s intellectual property. That same evening, Ms. Askew sent Plaintiff a “Cease & Desist” email accusing Plaintiff of infringing on Ms. Askew’s intellectual property rights and threatening legal action. In addition to maintaining that her designs were independently developed and materially different from those sold by Ms. Askew, Plaintiff alleges that Ms. Askew lacks any enforceable intellectual property right over her products.

Less than an hour after sending the Cease & Desist email, Ms. Askew posted on social media accusing Plaintiff of stealing her designs and calling on her followers to report Plaintiff’s business for selling “rip offs.”

On the morning of July 15, 2025, Ms. Boyce contacted Ms. Askew via social media and requested Plaintiff’s business account information, which Ms. Askew gave her. On the same day, Ms. Boyce commented that Plaintiff “has yet to meet a bully honestly. I’ve been busy today.”

Also on July 15, 2025, Plaintiff publicly responded to Ms. Askew’s accusations and denied that she had infringed on Ms. Askew’s intellectual property rights. Shortly afterwards, Ms. Boyce posted a response on social media accusing Plaintiff of stealing Ms. Askew’s designs, which garnered significant attention. Ms. Boyce made additional social media posts accusing Plaintiff of theft and instructing her followers to report Plaintiff’s business and to post negative reviews for the business on Facebook….

Both Ms. Askew and Ms. Boyce posted links and detailed instructions for their social media followers to contact Shopify, an online commerce platform utilized by Plaintiff’s business, and to report that Plaintiff’s business was illegally selling counterfeit products….

On July 17, 2025, Ms. Boyce posted a video directed at Plaintiff in which she said “If you value that business and that website, I would think twice before you continue to play the game you’re playing … the real bully has entered the chat. I promise you, you haven’t seen anything yet … I’m the one who made the viral post about it.”

Ms. Boyce continued “Bre [Ms. Askew] didn’t send a hate mob after you. I did … this was orchestrated because at this point, you fucking know that this was not an original idea. You know that it was stolen from a black creator, and you are still doing backflips to make excuses for that. So I’m going to say this and I promise you, I’m not going to say this again. Keep antagonizing this black woman. Keep going back and forth with her. Keep gaslighting her and painting her out to be the aggressor. When you are the one who stole her design. Keep doing it. Just go ahead and keep engaging it. And I promise you, going to court with Bre [Ms. Askew] is going to be the least of your worries. Google me, Google Kiandria Demone. And then keep on antagonizing this black woman. And you’re going to find out exactly who the fuck I am.” …

Plaintiff … alleges that “[a]ltogether, the defamatory statements Defendants conspired to spread were … heard by an audience of well over 14 million individuals.” Defendants are alleged to have “actively tagged and directed people towards Plaintiff, and even went so far as displaying Plaintiff’s full name, image, and State/City location in Defendant Boyce’s case.”

As a result of this campaign, Plaintiff alleges that she has suffered considerable personal harassment. The reporting of Plaintiff’s business to its online platforms is alleged to have resulted in lost profits, lost sales, lost future sales, and loss of customer goodwill. Plaintiff has had to decrease activity on her online business platform and has lost established business relationships with other online creators. Plaintiff alleges that this has damaged her personal and business reputation, as well as causing her emotional harm….

Plaintiff sued for defamation and related torts, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the court allowed the claims to go forward:

Here, Ms. Boyce presents challenges to both the legal and factual sufficiency of the claim. With respect to the factual challenges, Ms. Boyce claims there is no evidence of true threats or harassment; that Plaintiff failed to mitigate the harm; that third parties were the true cause of the harm; that Plaintiff has mischaracterized the evidence; that Ms. Boyce’s actions were directed at protecting consumers and encouraging transparency in online commerce; and that Ms. Boyce’s statements were not literal threats but “rhetorical hyperbole and activist expression.” …

[U]nder the federal rules, a factual challenge is premature before discovery has been undertaken. Here, no discovery has taken place and it would be improper to allow a challenge to the factual sufficiency of the claims to proceed at the pleading stage. The Court will therefore DENY the motion to the extent that it challenges the factual sufficiency of the claims with leave to refile after the close of discovery.

Ms. Boyce also appears, at least in part, to challenge the legal sufficiency of the claims….

Ms. Boyce argues that Plaintiff’s “selective targeting” of her “undermines credibility” and “reveals a retaliatory motive.” Questions of credibility are generally reserved for the finder of fact (i.e., the jury or, in the case of a bench trial, the Court) and cannot sustain a challenge to the pleadings. Ms. Boyce argues that “[s]elective litigation aimed at retaliation contravenes constitutional principles,” for which she cites BE & K Const. Co. v. NLRB (2002). The cited authority concerns the National Labor Relations Board’s imposition of liability on an employer for filing a losing retaliatory lawsuit. BE & K Construction has no applicability to the present case. Nor do Ms. Boyce’s arguments concerning Plaintiff’s motive in filing the case suffice to undermine Plaintiff’s claims. See Professional Real Estate Investors, Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc. (1993) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (“We may presume that every litigant intends to harm his adversary.”).

Ms. Boyce also argues that her statements were prefaced with “my guess” and “I think” and were therefore non-actionable expressions of opinion. However, the [Complaint] alleges numerous defamatory statements by Ms. Boyce that were not so qualified.

Ms. Boyce also argues that she cannot be held liable for the actions of third parties, citing 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1). Leaving aside whether § 230 applies to Ms. Boyce, the [Complaint] seeks to hold Ms. Boyce liable for her own alleged conduct, … rather than for the acts of third parties….

The court also concluded that the case can stay in Oregon federal court, because (to oversimplify slightly) defendants had purposefully directed their actions at Oregon and therefore were subject to the court’s jurisdiction:

As alleged [in the Complaint], Defendants repeatedly accused Plaintiff of stealing Ms. Askew’s intellectual property and selling counterfeit goods. They directed these accusations at Plaintiff, tagging Plaintiff’s social media accounts, and published them to their large social media followings, which caused Defendants’ statements to circulate to millions of people, both in Oregon and elsewhere. Notably, Defendants also directed their accusations at Plaintiff’s brother, who is also located in Oregon. These communications had an “Oregon focus” because they concerned Plaintiff’s activities in Oregon….

“[W]here acts are performed for the very purpose of having their consequences felt in the forum state, the forum will have personal jurisdiction over the actor.” Here, the Court concludes that Plaintiff has made a sufficient prima facie showing that Defendants expressly aimed their conduct, both the defamatory statements and the efforts to interfere with Plaintiff’s ongoing business relationships, at Oregon….

This is not … a case where Defendants are alleged to have passively operated a website or engaged in fleeting online contact with residents of the forum. As discussed above, the [Complaint] alleges a sustained and targeted campaign for the purpose of causing Plaintiff to suffer harm in Oregon. Defendants also assert that they cannot be liable for the acts of third parties, but the [Complaint] alleges Defendants’ own conduct as the basis for its claims. The Court concludes that the purposeful direction prong has been satisfied.