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….
