OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson is suing a Seattle-area plastic surgery provider and its owner, claiming the company illegally pressured patients to remove negative online reviews and forced employees to post fake positive reviews.
The lawsuit against Allure Esthetic and owner Dr. Javad Sajan in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington claims violations of state and federal laws protecting consumers and patient privacy.
The lawsuit alleges Allure went to extreme measures, even suing anonymous reviewers for defamation, to control what was said publicly about the practice on sites such as Google and Yelp.
"This case is about a company and its owner that did everything in its power, often illegally, to prevent individuals, clients from communicating to the public what their experience was in those reviews," Ferguson said in a news conference Thursday.
Ferguson is asking the court to stop Allure from continuing what he says are illegal practices and seeking financial penalties for violations of consumer protection and patient privacy laws.
Allure Esthetic could not be reached for comment via phone calls to its Seattle office on Thursday.
Allure Esthetic has offices in Seattle, Lynnwood and Kirkland and provides surgical and nonsurgical services, including gender-affirming care. Allure also does business under the names Gallery of Cosmetic Surgery, Seattle Plastic Surgery, Alderwood Surgical Center, Northwest Nasal Sinus Center and Northwest Face and Body, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that from 2017 to 2019, Allure required patients to sign nondisclosure agreements before they received any services, agreeing to contact the company directly rather than posting a "negative" review, which they considered to be less than four stars.
As part of that agreement, the lawsuit claims, patients were required to waive privacy rights so that the company could respond to negative reviews with personal health information, which Ferguson alleges violated the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known by its acronym, HIPAA. That act prohibits certain entities from disclosing sensitive health information without "valid" authorization.
That language was removed by Allure in 2019, but the company kept requiring these "pre-service" agreements until March 2022, Ferguson's office said.
Ferguson alleges in the lawsuit that Allure also threatened to sue patients if they didn't take down a negative review after they'd received services from the company, and offered money and free services to patients in exchange for removing a negative review.
Ferguson also alleges patients who agreed to take down negative reviews were forced by Allure to sign a second nondisclosure agreement stating they'd take down the negative review, not post any negative reviews in the future or face a $250,000 fine. Ferguson alleges the company still requires these agreements.
In addition, the lawsuit accuses Allure of doctoring before-and-after photos posted on social media to make them look better, buying fake followers and "likes," creating fake profiles to write positive reviews of the company, and of applying for rebates on behalf of patients without their consent and keeping thousands of dollars a month that should have gone to patients.
The lawsuit also alleges that Allure filed defamation lawsuits against reviewers it couldn't identify from the review in order to subpoena the review service and get the IP address — numbers that identify a specific computer — of the reviewer to find the person.
Ferguson said his office has been investigating Allure for about a year in response to complaints. The Attorney General's Office interviewed about 40 former employees and about 10 patients, Ferguson said.
