MyPillow initiates a new legal action to dismiss a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over false allegations of voter fraud to the CEO Mike Lindell About the 2020 presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols ruled to dismiss Dominion’s motion against MyPillow, Lindell and pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. Rudy Giuliani August 11. On Tuesday, MyPillow’s lawyers filed a new motion asking the judge to allow the Court of Appeals to consider its argument that Dominion is a “government entity” because it signed a contract with the government during the election. National Law Journal.
MyPillow’s lawyers asked Nichols to prove two legal issues to be considered by the Court of Appeals, and insisted that their arguments could lead to the dismissal of Dominion’s lawsuit. Both of these issues are raised under the assumption that Dominion’s government contract means that it will be treated as part of the government legally.
These questions concern the U.S. in 1964 Supreme Court case The New York Times Company v. Sullivan, Which imposes new restrictions on public officials who sue for defamation. After the ruling, officials and other public figures alleging defamation must show that these statements were made out of “genuine malice”, which means that “the defendant knew that the statements were false or had not investigated whether they were accurate or not. Under the circumstances, it was decided to publish the information recklessly.”
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The first question that the lawyer asked the judge to prove to the Court of Appeal concerns whether the lawsuit should be dismissed to prove reckless disregard if the lawsuit “failed to allege any direct evidence that the statement or behavior informed was false” and “relied only on indirect inferences” . “
The second question is whether the judge can refuse to reject the motion of a defamation case initiated by a public figure if he fails to “make judicial notice of the material and conduct a vigorous public debate on the issues raised in the complaint”.
“Dominion’s complaint does not meet the most stringent actual malicious requirements The New York Times v. Sullivan, This applies to government actors operating in large public debates,” the lawyers wrote in their motion. “The complaint does not allege any personal statements or actions by Michael Lindel that show that he knows that his allegations against Dominion are false or false. He desperately ignored the truth of the accusation. “
They continued: “The intense public debate surrounding the subject of Lindel’s speech provided him with constitutional protection and prohibits any inference that he was speaking with genuine malice.”
Despite Dominion’s lawsuit, Lindel continued to file false accusations that the company helped rig the election against the former president Donald TrumpThe CEO of MyPillow held a “webinar” earlier this month, promising that the event will include evidence of his claims.
In addition to the fact that there was no reliable evidence of large-scale election fraud at the seminar, Lindel previously predicted that Trump would inexplicably “reinstate” before August 14 after the Supreme Court’s “9-0” ruling. Reality.
Weekly newspaper Contact MyPillow and Dominion Voting Systems for comments.
