He needs a good lawyer

[Gob]

Volunteers?

Dominion Voting Systems, the voting equipment manufacturer at the centre of baseless election fraud conspiracy theories pushed by Donald Trump and his allies, has sued the former president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit.


The 107-page complaint, filed in federal court on Monday, accuses the former New York City mayor of having “manufactured and disseminated” a conspiracy theory related to the company’s voting machines.

“Dominion’s founder and employees have been harassed and received death threats, and Dominion has suffered unprecedented and irreparable harm,” the lawsuit states.

The company point to more than 50 statements by Giuliani about Dominion which it describes as defamatory. This includes remarks made at a 6 January rally in Washington before an insurrection on the US Capitol, appearances on Fox Business as well as social media posts.

“Dominion brings this action to set the record straight, to vindicate the company’s rights under civil law, to recover compensatory and punitive damages, and to stand up for itself, its employees, and the electoral process,” the complaint states.

Giuliani is the second Trump loyalist to face litigation from the company after pushing baseless claims of election fraud. The attorney Sidney Powell, who launched a series of failed lawsuits and pushed wild claims about election integrity, has also been sued for $1.3bn by Dominion.

Giuliani has continued to stand by his false claims about the election, stating during a radio show last week he is being attacked for “exercising my right of free speech and defending my client”.

On Monday, he said he would file suit in response.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... t-election

[Sue U]

On Monday, he said he would file suit in response.

WTAF? That's not how ANY of this works!

The Dominion complaint brings ALL the receipts, with lots of pictures and screenshots and URLs and the whole cast of characters from Donald Trump to Lou Dobbs to Sidney Batshit Powell and that awful bird app. The recounting of the facts underlying the defamation claim is alternately hilarious and terrifying, many of the laffs coming Rudy's continuous and blatant attempts to grift off the lies by selling on-line "security" software (protects you from the Venezuelans/Canadians election thieves, doncha know), dietary supplements, precious metals, and memberships in a "conservative alternative to AARP." And in addition to the facts underlying the defamation claim, it not-so-incidentally presents the evidence showing who is culpable for the Capitol riot, and how they did it.

It's a bit long for a complaint, but it's a fast-paced and fun read, ready-made for a screenplay adaptation. Four stars.

[Darren]

Lawfare is all fun and games until you're backed into a corner like Michael Mann and screwed.

Looks like Dominion is headed for the same corner.

[Sue U]

Lawfare is all fun and games until you're backed into a corner like Michael Mann and screwed.

Looks like Dominion is headed for the same corner.

And this expert legal opinion is based on ... ?????

[Darren]

You're a lawyer.

Unless you're an ambulance chaser or another lawyer that runs clients through assembly line style and always settles, you should be into case law.

Michael Mann sued and lost. Look him up. Dominion is headed down the same road.

[Sue U]

So someone who is not Dominion Voting Systems once sued someone else who is not Rudy Giuliani for defamation on facts that are not those here, and they lost. Crackerjack legal analysis there, sport.

And BTW, you can do the looking up and post it here if you think it's remotely relevant. If you want me to do your research for you, my rate is $500/hr (honestly, I'm due for a raise).

[ex-khobar Andy]

Michael Mann's suit against the National Review and Mark Steyn is continuing. Because Mann is at Penn State, as was pedophile and sex criminal Jerry Sandusky, Mark Steyn published a piece calling Mann the Jerry Sandusky of climate science.

SCOTUS has declined National Review's request to get involved. Various courts have decided not to dismiss the case. Steyn and National Review may have legitimate First Amendment grounds for the trash they wrote. But the science of climate change and Mann's 'hockey stick' survives and the IPCC still uses that science. The original 'hockey stick' graph used data up to around 2000 - it has been updated since and continues.

And to demonstrate a very trivial example of how science works: in one of his books there was a fairly basic math error which did not change the nature and extent of the argument. I pointed out this error in an email to Mann. (Trust me, it was trivial but none the less real.) I got a nice letter back and a signed copy and a promise to make the change in the next edition. I shall check next time I am in B&N.

[Sue U]

xxx

Some kind "internal server error" is fucking with my attempts to post. But what I wanted to say was that in fact it was Mark Steyn who lost his counter-suit against Dr. Mann for "abusive litigation" (which is not actually a thing in the law) and the court specifically noted that a reasonable jury could certainly find in favor of Dr. Mann on his defamation claim.

Moreover, it is the National Review defendants who have lost every attempt to get Mann's defamation suit dismissed -- including an appeal to the Supreme Court. So right now the case is still active on the docket in the DC Superior Court.

So Darren, when you said "Michael Mann sued and lost," did you really mean "he sued, has won every dispositive motion, including dismissal of Mark Steyn's counter-suit, and is now just waiting for a trial date"?

[ex-khobar Andy]

I see that Sidney 'Batshit' Powell is now claiming that "no reasonable people would believe her election fraud claims" to quote CNN's report. In her lawyers' filing in support of her opposition to Dominion's billion dollar claim against her, they say (my emphasis):

Such characterizations of the allegedly defamatory statements further support Defendants' position that reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims that await testing by the courts through the adversary process.

For once I fully agree with Ms Powell, at least the underlined bit. Dominion might have difficulty proving their billion dollar loss due to Ms Powell's idiocy but a few dozen million might be easily supportable. Could Ms Powell sue her client whose case she was making if she loses here? I suspect that Trump will find a convenient bus to throw her under. Pass the popcorn, please. This could run and run.

[Guinevere]

So, her lawyers got nothing and have decided it’s better their client get disciplined by the bar for filing bad faith claims (A lawyer does not file a lawsuit just as a test of unreasonable statements, there must be a good faith basis for the claim, not to mention meeting standing requirements— otherwise it’s frivolous, harassing, and abuse of process) than being subject to bazillions in damages.

It’s a strategy, I suppose.

[Sue U]

It’s a strategy, I suppose.

Snert.

"... it is clear that Powell was describing the facts on which she based the lawsuits she filed in support of President Trump," Powell's defense lawyers wrote in a court filing on Monday.

***

"Indeed, Plaintiffs themselves characterize the statements at issue as 'wild accusations' and 'outlandish claims.' They are repeatedly labelled 'inherently improbable' and even 'impossible.' Such characterizations of the allegedly defamatory statements further support Defendants' position that reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact ...,"

O hai Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, whatcha got to say?

(b) Representations to the Court. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:

***

(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery;

Go ahead, let's see if you can thread that needle, should be hi-larious. We can haz sanctions now?

[Big RR]

Don't hold your breath; you won't see any response on point.

[Guinevere]

It’s a strategy, I suppose.

Snert.

"... it is clear that Powell was describing the facts on which she based the lawsuits she filed in support of President Trump," Powell's defense lawyers wrote in a court filing on Monday.

***

"Indeed, Plaintiffs themselves characterize the statements at issue as 'wild accusations' and 'outlandish claims.' They are repeatedly labelled 'inherently improbable' and even 'impossible.' Such characterizations of the allegedly defamatory statements further support Defendants' position that reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact ...,"

O hai Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, whatcha got to say?

(b) Representations to the Court. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:

***

(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery;

Go ahead, let's see if you can thread that needle, should be hi-larious. We can haz sanctions now?

Lawyer geek hilarity. Love it!