Guzman v. Sorola

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DORA GUZMAN, NORMA CADRIEL HERNANDEZ, AND RUBI MORENO, Appellants, v. LOUIS SOROLA, Appellee.

No. 13-21-00168-CV

Court of Appeals of Texas, Thirteenth District, Corpus Christi-Edinburg

January 27, 2022

On appeal from the 197th District Court of Cameron County Texas.

Before Chief Justice Contreras and Justices Hinojosa and Silva

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CLARISSA SILVA, JUSTICE.

This is an interlocutory appeal from an order denying a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA). See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 27.001 et seq. Appellee Louis Sorola sued appellants Dora Guzman, Norma Cadriel Hernandez, and Rubi Moreno^[1] alleging defamation per se (libel and slander), business disparagement, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and aiding and abetting. Sorola sought to hold appellants liable for their involvement in the creation and dissemination of YouTube videos which Sorola alleged "blacken[ed]" his personal and professional reputation as a former associate judge and district judge candidate.

Appellants contend the trial court erred because Sorola's defamation, business disparagement, and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims fall within the scope of the TCPA, and Sorola failed to produce clear and specific evidence showing a prima facie case for each element of these claims. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part.

I. Background

A. Guzman's Human Resources Complaint

On October 1, 2017, Sorola was sworn in as a magistrate court judge in Cameron County, Texas. At the time, Guzman was the magistrate court administrator and Moreno was a part-time deputy court clerk.

On April 11, 2018, Guzman filed a complaint with human resources (HR) alleging Sorola had engaged in retaliation, abuse of official capacity "by [i]ntimidation," and sexual harassment.^[2] The complaint stated, in relevant part, that "Sorola started doing favors for not only his friends but friends of his wife" shortly after being sworn into office. Guzman provided specific examples of incidents when Sorola had asked her to work after hours on evenings and weekends to accommodate friends.

Guzman's complaint also detailed text message exchanges between herself and Sorola which occurred on or about February 23, 2018, February 24, 2018, and March 1, 2018, wherein Sorola purportedly used unprofessional language. Messages from Sorola included: "Stop chi-adndo [sic]"; "Take it like a man"; "F[-]ck her"; and "F[-]ck you."

Guzman stated that, less than two weeks after allegedly sending the "F[-]ck you" text message, Sorola asked her and Moreno if he could fire them. According to Guzman, she responded by telling Sorola that he "need[ed] to be very careful because some of the things [he] do[es] could get [him] in trouble later on down the road." Guzman and Moreno then confronted Sorola about "doing favors for attorneys," "making agreements/arraignments after[-]hours," and providing a journalist, Juan Montoya, with information "no [one] else knows anything about" regarding cases.

On April 11, 2018, following an incident wherein Guzman turned away a bondsman after-hours, Guzman and Moreno were called to meet with several local judges. Guzman stated that she went into the meeting believing it was an opportunity to "explain everything that had been happening in the Magistrate Court" but was surprised to see Sorola was present. Guzman described the meeting as "hostile," and she submitted her written complaint regarding Sorola to HR later that same day.

B. "Letter of Reprimand"

On July 2, 2018, the local administrative judge issued a memorandum entitled "Letter of Reprimand" addressed to the Cameron County Board of Judges, Sorola, and Guzman:

This letter is to inform [Sorola] that an investigation has been conducted and completed regarding the allegations of Sexual Harassment, Hostile Work Environment, Retaliation and Abuse of Official Capacity brought against [Sorola] by [Guzman], employee for the Magistrate Court. The Board of Judges does not condone any behavior that would constitute Sexual Harassment, Hostile Work Environment, Retaliation or Abuse of Official [sic]. . . . [T]he Board of Judges requested an investigation be conducted by [HR]. The investigation conducted by [HR] concluded that there was not sufficient evidence of a charge of Sexual Harassment. Further, [HR] concluded that there was no evidence of retaliation based on making a complaint of sexual harassment or of a hostile work environment. The Board of Judges agreed with the [HR] investigation and adopted their findings in concluding that no violation had occurred on behalf of [Sorola]. On the allegation of Abuse of Official Capacity[, ] the Board of Judges also accepted the recommendation of the committee of Judges appointed by the Board of Judges in its determination that the allegations and evidence did not rise to the level of an Abuse of Official Capacity. However, the Board of Judges, by a majority vote agreed that the language used by [Sorola] in [his] communications with [Guzman] was not appropriate language to be used by a person in a supervisory capacity. As such the Board of Judges concluded that this type of behavior warranted a written reprimand [to Sorola].

C. "The Real Louis Sorola"

At some unspecified point in spring of 2019, Sorola announced his judicial candidacy for the 404th District Court. On or about August 1, 2019, Sorola was removed from his magistrate judge duties, ^[3] and all interactions between Sorola and Guzman ceased at that time.

On February 11, 2020, the Tuesday before early voting was scheduled to commence in the primary election, Guzman posted a YouTube video titled "The [R]eal [L]ouis [S]orola by [D]ora [G]uzman" under the YouTube account "[N]ews [B]rownsville."^[4] A video entitled, "The Real Louis Sorola by Rubi Moreno," was also posted on the same day to the same account.^[5] The videos, which have approximately 2, 000 and 1, 500 views respectively, are the only videos uploaded on the "[N]ews [B]rownsville" account.

The following transcript of Guzman's video is in the record:

My name is Dora Guzman and I'm the court administrator for the magistrate court. I filed a complaint against Judge Louis Sorola back in 2018-May of 2018, to be precise. A complaint which consisted of sexual harassment, intimidation, retaliation, hostile environment, and abuse of official capacity. That's what I filed with HR. And I also went as far as filing a complaint with the Texas [State] Commission on Judicial Conduct [(SCJC)].^[6] My complaint came aboard, as I said, in the early-in the late May 2018, due to the fact that Judge Sorola started doing things that he should not have been doing. He abused his official capacity as a judge by intimidation. He did things that were of nature to us [sic] as sexual harassment. He-we started working in a hostile environment. It was not a safe environment for us to work there. Every day we came to work, it was like if we were stepping on eggshells.

He considered us insubordinate because we were not doing things that he wanted us to do that were, in our eyes and the years of experience that I've worked there, illegal and should not have been performed. We also-he did [sic] double standard with other employees that were able to do the things that he wanted without any questioning.

To put it in very few words, Associate Judge Louis Sorola should have never been placed in that position. According to him, in his own words, this was a favor that was done to him by Commissioner Sofia Benavides, Elia Cornejo-Lopez, and Migdalia Lopez. According to him, in his own words, this position was already in place[;] it was just a matter of them having to present the position and go through the legalities of him getting the position.

He should not be a judge. He is not judge material. He is a big liability to the county. He does things that should not be done, which, in turn should-we -would be considered illegal. He is a liability not only to the county, to the courts, but also to the community because the things that he does are things that should not have-should not be done. And if the community were to find out the kind of things he does, they would not be voting for him. This is not a judge the community would want sitting at the bench.

Judge Sorola has violated a lot of the Texas Ethic[s] Commission rules, a lot of the can[]ons. He has done a lot of things to serve himself at the bench for, in turn, to get votes, and he's done a lot of favors for many attorneys, many bondsmen, a lot of the public, and-and, therefore, he is just a liability for the community[, ] and he should not be a judge.

So-because we find ourself [sic] in a world of retaliation, we need to-we need to stand together and we need to voice our voice. We need to stop allowing these people to step all over us and to step all over what we stand for. These things cannot be happening. The only reason they're happening is because we ourselves are allowing it. If we don't raise an issue right now, it will be a disaster and he will become a liability to our community. Thank you.

The following is the transcript of Moreno's YouTube video statement:

While being the magistrate judge, he did harass us a lot stating, you know, ["]I am the judge and who is going to believe you. No-you're just the court clerk. And I'm here because my mother-in-law Sofia Benavide[s] is the one that helped me get this position and my wife, Judge Mary Esther Sorola[, ] and I am the judge.["] That-he would always tell us constantly.

I worked with Judge Louis Sorola from October 1, 2017[, ] to October-June 6, 2018. I had been working in the magistrate court since 2015. So I was already a court clerk when Judge Louis Sorola came

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