Edward J. Nichols, DVM, and d/b/a Crestway Animal Clinic, San Antonio, Texas v. Julie Catalano. July 21, 2005 - March 10, 2008. We received Nichols' final signed settlement agreement in late January 2009, which was backdated to the dismissal date of March 10, 2008.
Sometimes a stupid vet gets stupider. And stupiderer.
In July 2005, in an act of sheer arrogance, ultimate conceit and biblical stoopidness, Ed Nichols of Crestway Animal Clinic in San Antonio, Texas, served me with a temporary injunction and lawsuit claiming, among other things: libel, slander, tortious interference with business prospects, blah blah blah, and (my personal favorite) intentional infliction of emotional distress.
When you read Suki's Story, you can decide who was inflicting emotional (and in Suki's case, physical) distress on whom.
Nichols was determined to dismantle my Veterinary Abuse Network web site and permanently prevent me from telling Suki's Story here, there,or anywhere. As you can see, Nichols and his hideous lawyer Ann Comerio failed miserably in their attempts to get a permanent injunction and take away my First Amendment rights.
Apparently, having a judge kick Nichols' unconstitutional injunction to the curb with the rest of the garbage after repeatedly shutting Nichols down for hearsay testimony in the injunction hearing wasn't humiliating enough. Nichols appealed the verdict and the 4th Court of Appeals similarly tossed this trash and slapped a judgment against Nichols for filing such stupidity in the first place.
At the end of this post is a link to a brief timeline of the case, which ran from July 21, 2005 to late January 2009. Yes, you read that right - even after the lower court and the appellate court shot down Nichols and Crestway Animal Clinic, he never stopped trying to get his way and apparently had the money to drag it out as long as he or his lawyer (ka-ching!) wanted. Well, until the night before trial, that is, when his lawyer called mine and wanted to talk settlement. Translation: after two-and-a-half years of putting me and my family through legal hell, the coward ran. It was almost another year before we finally got his signature on the settlement agreement that his side had initiated.
So despite our side being locked and loaded and ready for trial, complete with boxes of documents, a PowerPoint presentation, rock solid evidence from Nichols' own handwritten records from Crestway Animal Clinic, and a kick-ass board certified testifying expert from Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine who was basically going to dissect Nichols for cheap parts -- the whole thing ended not with a bang but a whimper. And it wasn't our side whimpering.
My attorney was laughing when he called me that Sunday night before trial, and I soon joined in as he related the details of the contact from the other side.
After all the sturm und drang of the previous two and a half years, it was pretty much a big fat nothing. We gladly settled with Nichols' hired banshee that night, just hours away from trial, with my First Amendment rights, my website, and my ability to shout Suki's Story from the rooftops if I so desire, completely and forever safe from Ed Nichols or any other delusional control freak who thinks money and lawyers can overturn the Bill of Rights.
Neither Ed Nichols, Crestway Animal Clinic and any of its minions, nor any ruling, judgment, verdict, or gag order has any control over me or anything I wish to say or publish about him, Crestway Animal Clinic, his unconscionable treatment of Suki, the hideous events that transpired, his disgraceful and deficient records on Suki, or even his hairdo if I so choose.
I made sure from day one that my attorneys knew that I would never, under any circumstances, surrender one iota of my freedom of speech.
And I didn't.
Actually, I wasn't all that surprised. I had said from the beginning that this obvious SLAPP suit would never go to trial. Ed Nichols knows exactly what happened to Suki, and while he can spin his endless self-serving bullshit to his clueless "fans," the giant steaming load o'crap he's been peddling since 1999 would never hold up under cross examination.
Not with those sloppy, shabby records; Suki's last abysmal lab work the same day he put her under anesthesia without consent, knowledge, or IV fluids; his repeated and ridiculous attempts to blame me for what he alone did; and his own various "versions" of events colliding in mid-air.
Unlike his usual brain-dead audience where no one questions or challenges him, Nichols would have no control over a jury, a judge, the media, or any observers in attendance at a public trial, and every word would be on the record with nowhere -- nowhere -- for this creep to hide.
Sure enough, the next morning, March 10, 2008, neither Nichols nor his lawyer Ann Comerio showed their faces in open court for the settlement announcement and dismissal of Nichols' lawsuit against me. For those of you under the impression that Nichols "won," please take note of both their absences -- if there had been any "victory" here, Nichols would have been posturing and preening like a deranged peacock. By contrast, he practically scurried to the witness stand back in July 2005 when he started this whole train wreck, probably thinking all he had to do was tell the judge his "version" of events, get his hearsay "testimony" to stick, and -- voila! -- my web site would be down before lunchtime. Mission accomplished! Um, not so much. That was an epic fail for him.
So on this day, nearly three years later, it was just my attorneys and me, standing at the bench -- my lead attorney making sure (twice!) to express on the record his disappointment that the plaintiffs Nichols/Crestway Animal Clinic didn't see fit to make an appearance in court (ooo, snap!) and me extremely happy but still looking around, half expecting CrazyVet and BansheeLawyer to swoop in any minute with some new stunt. We had certainly seen plenty of legal theatrics up until then.
But it was all completely uneventful. Prior to the dismissal proceedings, I met the judge and shook his hand, grateful that it seemed we would have had a fair and competent judge for this ridiculous suit had a trial actually occurred. With a twinkle in his eye he told me that he had been looking forward to it, saying that he had read the case documents and "was curious to see how the plaintiffs were going to prove damages."
Uh, yeah. Us too, your honor.
I think the judge knew exactly what kind of case this was.
Looking back, I guess Nichols and/or his hired legal gun decided it would be better, maybe, not to have Nichols' sorry butt on a witness stand spewing its usual verbal diarrhea. Under oath, no less. After all, he hadn't done too well in his deposition, also under oath. "Julie, that guy just lost their case for them." That's what my attorney said to me halfway through deposing Nichols in October 2006.
I have to say that Edward J. Nichols' deposition was one of the bright spots of this whole ordeal. Watching him shift around, clench his jaw, claim he couldn't speak very loud because he had a cold (also maybe cuz there was a tape recorder right next to him?), hear him give his ridiculous non-answers, brag about all the thank you cards and calls he gets from his clients, and bristle at taking orders from his lawyer to shut up when he started running off at the mouth, was a joy to behold.
And oh yeah -- outright lying about Suki never being under anesthesia when it was right there on the chart (April 19, 1999 "extract under [halothane and nitrous oxide"]. Nichols, true to form, attempted yet again to rewrite history (and his own handwriting), but the darn truth just kept getting in the way.
I practically skipped home that night.
My attorney, with his deliberately polite questions and affable manner, had buttered up that dumb biscuit but good, and Nichols -- with his dependably supersized ego -- had scarfed it down. All that was left was for my trial attorney to go in for the kill, using Nichols' contradictory answers, his highly questionable "knowledge," and his own sorry patient chart that contained the facts and proof of what Nichols had really done to Suki.
(Back in 2005, after Nichols lost the injunction hearing and I wanted to post Suki's chart from Crestway Animal Clinic on my website to shove it in his face, my lead attorney said, sure, go ahead. He then stopped and said, "No, wait, not yet. That's how I'm going to get the son of a bitch.")
Comerio earned her fee that night trying to control her petulant, know-it-all client during deposition who was mightily frustrated at his inability to speechify without Miss Ann squeezing his arm every time he got close to shooting himself in whatever body parts he had left.
Nichols was an unhappy mess, totally out of his depth and obviously unused to being controlled or restricted in any way. My attorney never took his eyes off the freak, and you could tell Nichols hated the scrutiny. Comerio repeatedly used arm poking, hand signals and head shaking at Nichols so that she wouldn't get recorded by either the steno or the tape recorder, finally having to resort to taking her sorry client out in the hall so they could "consult."
It was a pathetic display, but I didn't need to be a lawyer to know that Nichols completely sucked at being deposed. I knew that he would. He's an insufferable arrogant asshole outside of his little animal kingdom where he is in complete control of all he surveys. Including innocent animals who can't talk.
Comerio got her revenge the next day, putting me through a six hour deposition where she wanted the names and breeds of every cat I had ever owned or rescued, the names of every vet I had ever seen or talked to, the names of every publication I had ever written for, and then -- when I refused to answer personal questions that had nothing to do with anything -- went into full shriek mode and threatened to call the judge, instructing her then-law firm partner Karen Vowell to get the judge on the phone so he could jail me for contempt, I guess. Not sure what their plan was -- maybe put on a good show for their rich client?
My cool attorney was very cool, as I wondered if I'd have time to go home and feed the kitties before what was sure to be my unfortunate incarceration. I was also making a mental list of my reporter friends who would probably be happy to interview me in jail. He leaned back, smiled and said, "Go ahead, call the judge."
After more grandstanding by Nichols' lawyers, with Vowell first running to the phone in the conference room and then running out of the room to find another phone (or maybe to take a pee - who knows what she was doing), and Comerio barking orders to Vowell and watching me to see if I would maybe fall apart (I didn't) the whole thing came to ... nothing.
Funny thing was, all the agitating and cogitating, all the yelling and waving of arms, reminded me of the day when I went to get Suki's medical records at Crestway Animal Clinic after her death, and Nichols began stomping around and screaming, "Get off my property!" instructing one of his paid minions to "Call the sheriff! Get my attorney - get Mark Clark on the phone!" Nichols' lawyer (presumably before he found Ann Comerio) was none other than Mark Clark of New Braunfels, Texas, who has since had some (cough) convicted criminal (cough) problems of his own. (But that's another story--one where Clark ends up serving prison time as a convicted sex offender and is gloriously disbarred.)
After my deposition, when I asked my attorney what all that was about, with Comerio yelling and intimidating, Vowell running around, both of them posturing and posing in their (apparent) threat to get a judge to cite me for contempt, etc., he laughed and said, "That's how you act when you're losing." Whew. Okay. Still, it was disturbing. Based on what Nichols had done to Suki and her life with his "treatment," and then to me and my life with this lawsuit, I believed this "doctor" was capable of literally anything. Still do.
Speaking of depositions, we never did get our hands on Nichols' so-called "expert" vet witness, Gary Norsworthy DVM of San Antonio. They de-designated him and removed him from the case two days before his court-ordered deposition, eliminating him both from that and testifying for Nichols at trial. Maybe this world-renowned vet "guru" was a tad nervous about being quoted on proper treatment for feline chronic renal failure from his own textbooks? Maybe Nichols' lawyer decided it would be best not to have their "expert" actually help our side? Maybe Norsworthy himself decided that having his sorry butt on a witness stand trying to explain his little friend Eddie's repeated mistreatment of a cat wouldn't be a wise career move? We'll never know. Like every other vet before and since, Nichols' "expert" Norsworthy couldn't fully explain Nichols' treatment either - instead choosing his words very carefully in his written report, ignoring and omitting the most important medical issues, blaming me, and ultimately chalking up the whole thing to what he called a "monumental misunderstanding."
Yeah, right. I won't be taking my pets to that idiot either.
By the way, none of this would have been possible without the best attorneys money can't buy - my First Amendment-loving guys did it pro bono - and I can never thank them enough. They were first class, impeccable professionals who handily booted Nichols' butt like a rusty old tin can. These wonderful attorneys were Suki's last guardian angels on this earth and we were so lucky to have them. I think she was smiling her little Siamese smile too, when it was all over. In the elevator after the court's dismissal, my lead attorney turned to me and said, "You knew it from the beginning, Julie. He's a coward."
My attorney just hates it when I'm right.
His other statement was music to my ears: "Julie, you kicked his ass."
Yes. Yes I did. Suki and me, we sure did. The truth has a way of doing that.
Being sued by an arrogant, filthy rich bully vet and his arrogant, well-paid lawyers gunning for your First Amendment rights is no picnic, but it can happen to anyone who dares to tell the truth about what goes on behind closed doors at a vet's office - especially a very bad vet with very closed doors. Every single day since April 19, 1999, I have wished to God I had never heard the name Ed Nichols or Crestway Animal Clinic. This freak was the worst thing to ever happen to Suki and me -- and how many others? The ease with which he continued to mistreat her for so long and in so many different ways was chilling and despicable -- and would have remained unknown to me without the help of the second opinion vets who tried so hard to save her. And without Suki herself to survive the horrific ordeal long enough to leave the evidence.
All I can do now is educate others about what Nichols did to Suki...and what he did to me -- and how creeps like Nichols are out there doing whatever they want to our pets, pretty confident that state veterinary board systems are going to do absolutely nothing to them and totally confident of an ignorant, trusting public who has no idea what's really going on. We simply have to be better educated consumers who know how to recognize and steer clear of incompetent, negligent, bullying, arrogant and yes, STUPID vets in the first place. Confusing personality with proficiency and degrees with intelligence are two big mistakes, for starters.
This is a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of taking their pets to vets who mistreat innocent animals and their unsuspecting guardians and then try to sue their own victims into silence. If anyone had told me that anything this horrific could happen to Suki or me, I would have said they were crazy. But it did happen, to both of us, and now my job is to help protect others.
I'm thinking of writing a book about the whole experience. Who knows? Maybe Nichols will be stoopid enough to sue me again.
