An Oakland County doctor and his clinic-assisting wife were all smiles after their cats gained world-record status.
One cat was declared the world’s tallest living domestic cat; another feline was listed as having the world’s longest tail, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The couple also owns four other cats.
What wasn’t said in the news from Guinness was that this cat-loving couple endured a tough climb to reach this week’s triumph, capping a comeback for their professional careers as well as for their success in raising record-breaking cats. Just five years ago, Dr. William Powers and his wife Lauren Powers suffered a devastating fire at their house in Farmington Hills. Not only was their home and its entire contents destroyed, they also lost three cats, two of them previous world record holders, according to news stories at the time.
The couple then filed a lawsuit, seeking “an amount exceeding $1 million” in damages from a California company that sold what they claimed was a defective electric massage chair, which “malfunctioned and caused a massive fire,” according to a 2019 complaint filed in federal court in Detroit. Among other losses claimed in the lawsuit were $300,000 in cryptocurrency, “which cannot be recovered”; their inability to work for months after the fire, causing a loss of “substantial wages and income”; a facial injury to Dr. Powers sustained in the fire, and “lasting emotion damage” as well as “deep…
