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HGTV Fires Back at ‘Flip or Flop’ Lawsuit Claiming Tarek and Christina El Moussa Stiffed Their Former Employee
HGTV has got their backs! Estranged exes and business partners, Tarek and Christina El Moussa, want their alleged ex-employee’s lawsuit to be tossed out, and the network agreed. According to North Carolina United States District Court documents obtained by Radar Online, Scripps Network and HGTV asked for a judge to dismiss Jonathan Schmier’s lawsuit against the Flip or Flop stars “because the requirements of diversity jurisdiction are not met and no other grounds for federal jurisdiction are apparent.” They also claimed the suit lacked “subject matter.”
Back in May, Jonathan filed the lawsuit against Christina, 34, and Tarek, 36, for $12,800 in wages and $25,000 in unpaid commission. In the papers — which were grammatically incorrect and contained misspelled words — he claimed to have reached out to their operating manager, Pete DeBest, in January 2016 and was set up with a “50/50” partnership deal. However, he was notified that he was “never an employee” in October 2016 — after he had begun working for the pair. Jonathan said he tried to resolve the issue with Pete and the El Moussas, but they “blocked [his] e-mail address and face book [sic] pages and phone numbers in an attempt to avoid paying [him].”
Yet despite having HGTV to back the power couple, Jonathan wanted to “have his case heard.” In the docs, he stated, “Just because a case is filed in the wrong court a Plaintiff is still entitled to have his/her case heard and not just have a case Dismissed with Prejudice because they Pro-se Plaintiff failed to file the case in the proper court unaware of the Subject matter law/requirement [sic].”
Meanwhile, the former couple — who share Taylor, 6, and Brayden, 2, together — are in the middle of their divorce battle. Recently Christina opened up about post-breakup life and explained to Good Housekeeping, “The divorce was filed in January by Tarek and I responded to the filing last week. We currently have joint custody of our two children and that is our plan moving forward.” The mother-of-two also added that she kept her private life private, even when it came to her parents. “I wasn’t very vocal with them about some of the issues that Tarek and I were having, so all of the sudden it’s like bam — I’ve moved out, I’m living at my nanny’s house. It came as a shock to 99.9% of people, including my parents,” she revealed. “Tarek was talking to them more than I was at first, and that made it a little difficult because they were just hearing his side. They were hoping we would be able to reconcile, especially for the kids, and also because Tarek and I had built such a life together. We were involved in every aspect of each other’s life, we still are. But in the end, it’s mine and Tarek’s decision, and only ours.”
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