Kelly Hettinger, also known as Kelly Christina, and Andrew Hettinger were married and owned several businesses; during their separation and divorce, loans under the CARES Act were obtained for four of them: SW Trading Group and 1 Main Closeouts, LLC, which Kelly solely owned, and Produce IT, LLC and El Rojo Grande Real Estate Holdings, LLC, which each owned half. Kelly says the loans were obtained, with the help of the couple's accountant, using her identifying information without her knowledge or agreement, and that she hired attorney Michael Minns out of concern about civil and criminal liability for entities in her name.¹ Minns's August 31, 2020 letter told the SBA that Andrew, potentially with the CPA's help, forged Kelly's name on loan documents, and enclosed checks returning $158,900 of loan funds; SBA records show a March 17, 2021 call in which four loans were marked "Identity Theft," and on August 16, 2023 Minns spoke with an SBA paralegal specialist who emailed the SBA's Declaration of Identity Theft.² Andrew says he was authorized as manager of the companies to obtain the loans, that the loans were repaid, and that the August 2023 statements were repeated falsehoods made a day before a post-divorce hearing and after Minns's engagement had ended.³

Andrew sued Kelly and Minns for defamation on November 30, 2023 in the 370th District Court of Hidalgo County over statements he says were made to an SBA lender on August 16, 2023 that he filed fraudulent loan applications and stole Kelly's identity. Both defendants moved to dismiss under the TCPA, and the trial court denied both motions. The Thirteenth Court of Appeals (Tijerina, C.J., joined by West and Fonseca, JJ.) affirmed in a memorandum opinion, Hettinger v. Hettinger, Nos. 13-24-00176-CV and 13-24-00177-CV, 2025 WL 1702281 (Tex. App.⁠—Corpus Christi–Edinburg June 18, 2025, pet. filed), denying Kelly's motion for rehearing on August 25, 2025.¹ Kelly petitioned for review on December 3, 2025 and Andrew responded March 18, 2026. The Court requested merits briefing; Kelly filed August 5, 2026, the Court noted on September 28, 2026 that Andrew's brief was late, he filed that day, and Kelly's reply is not yet on file (Docket). Minns's separate petition is No. 25-0897.

Petition for review from the Thirteenth Court of Appeals following an interlocutory appeal of the denial of a TCPA motion to dismiss a defamation suit (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 51.014(a)(12)). The Court requested and received merits briefing; the petitioner's reply is not yet on file, and the Court has not yet granted the petition. A companion petition, No. 25-0897, challenges the same decision as to the attorney.

1. Whether the Thirteenth Court of Appeals erred in holding that the trial court properly denied Kelly's and Minns's TCPA motions to dismiss. 2. Whether it erred in concluding they failed to establish that the TCPA applies to Andrew's defamation claims.¹ Andrew restates the issue as whether the trial court was presented with competent evidence by which Kelly could show by a preponderance that she was exercising her right to petition or her right of free speech.²

Petitioner (Kelly Hettinger a/k/a Kelly Christina): Her communications with the SBA about the loans and the alleged identity theft concern fraud involving federal pandemic relief funds, which she contends brings them within the TCPA's definitions of the exercise of free speech on a matter of public concern and of the right to petition, so the TCPA applies and the burden shifts to Andrew. She relies on the SBA's own records, including its March 2021 notes marking the loans as identity theft and its August 2023 transmission of an identity-theft declaration, and argues Andrew admitted in a February 2024 affidavit that he had no evidence of libelous statements.¹

Respondent (Andrew Hettinger): The trial court was not presented with competent evidence that the TCPA applies, because Kelly offered none showing by a preponderance that she exercised the right to petition or free speech. Even considering her affidavits, the alleged defamation was not a matter of public concern and no right to petition was implicated: the August 2023 contact repeated earlier accusations after the loans were repaid, on the eve of a hearing in the divorce. If the TCPA applied, he offered clear and specific evidence of a prima facie claim, and Kelly established no affirmative defense of qualified judicial immunity, substantial truth, qualified privilege or limitations as a matter of law.²

Kelly argues the court of appeals erred in refusing to apply the TCPA to reports of alleged fraud on a federal pandemic-relief program, and her attorney's companion petition in No. 25-0897 asks the Court to clarify the TCPA's right-to-petition and public-concern provisions. Andrew responded at the petition stage that the opinion is fact-dependent and presents no question important to the state's jurisprudence.¹

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