(Photograph by JIM WATSON/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Tough day in Pillow City because the Supreme Court docket put the kibosh on Mike Lindell’s hopes of keeping off a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit in opposition to him filed by Dominion Voting Methods.
After first professing to be “thrilled” to be sued by the voting machine producer over his allegations that it rigged the 2020 election for President Biden, Lindell proceeded to have interaction in a bunch of batcrap shenanigans to keep away from a day of reckoning. First he filed a counterclaim in Minnesota, asking a federal choose in his house state to declare Dominion’s swimsuit in DC to be unlawful and throwing in a RICO declare for good measure. Then, after being summarily booted again to DC, he filed one other counterclaim, this time interpleading Dominion’s competitor Smartmatic, underneath the idea that the 2 corporations had been in cahoots in opposition to him.
Unsurprisingly, he bought a cold reception from US District Choose Carl J. Nichols, who dismissed the Smartmatic swimsuit and refused to grant Lindell’s movement to dismiss the case primarily based on a principle that Dominion did not allege precise malice underneath the New York Occasions v. Sullivan normal for defamation in opposition to a public determine.
Lindell demanded the appropriate to file an instantaneous interlocutory enchantment, however was rebuffed by the DC Circuit as a result of, underneath 28 U.S.C. § 1291, you’ll be able to solely enchantment an adversarial ultimate judgment, and this ain’t it. However Lindell, who has incessantly promised to enlist the Supreme Court docket in his schemes, appeared to suppose the Justices is perhaps inclined to bail him out.
In a very weird petition for cert, he argued that “The courtroom of appeals’ rejection of petitioners’ enchantment on jurisdictional grounds prevents an appellate courtroom from meaningfully making use of the ‘precise malice’ normal to guard from harassing litigation expression criticizing official conduct of public enterprise.”
He and his attorneys, a dream workforce which incorporates Harvard Regulation Faculty’s most well-known emerita, Alan Dershowitz, appear to suppose they’re entitled to a pre-trial dedication as as to whether Dominion is a public determine.
The petition additionally takes as its premise that Dominion, a non-public firm, can be a authorities actor, and wonders “Whether or not a critic of official conduct might instantly enchantment underneath 28 U.S.C. § 1291 a district ii choose’s refusal to dismiss underneath New York Occasions Co. v. Sullivan a defamation grievance in opposition to him, if the critic’s movement to dismiss accepts the reality of all of the allegations of the grievance, and its denial will end in his enduring lengthy and costly discovery and pretrial proceedings.”
And but, a lot of the petition is occupied with promoting the Court docket on a incredible alternative to make clear “[t]he correct understanding and software of Part 1291 to varied collateral orders … an essential query that has divided 14 the Circuits.”
The Court docket ought to grant certiorari on the jurisdictional subject offered by this petition in order to offer steerage to decrease federal courts on the place the road must be drawn between instantly appealable interlocutory orders and people who should await ultimate judgment. This is a crucial query through which the Court docket has proven curiosity in current Phrases.
Name now, and he’ll even throw in a free MyPillow!
Or not, for the reason that courtroom declined to listen to his case. Ah, nicely, you lose some, you lose some extra. Isn’t that how that saying goes?
MyPillow Inc v. US Dominion Inc. [SCOTUS Docket]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she writes about legislation and politics.
