WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – The pillow company caught up in controversy following the 2020 Presidential election will try to appeal a ruling that allows a defamation lawsuit against it to proceed.
MyPillow wants D.C. federal judge Carol Nichols to certify her Aug. 11 ruling denying its motion to dismiss so that it can appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The company has been sued by Dominion, which provided voting machines, over claims the outcome was rigged for Joe Biden.
“At the heart of this case is the scope of an American citizen’s right to criticize how his government handles the counting of votes. Were electronic voting systems used in the November 2020 election hacked and manipulated? Plaintiff Dominion’s billion-dollar defamation lawsuits and related public attacks against MyPillow and numerous others are an effort to choke off public discussion of these foundational political issues,” attorneys for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell wrote on Aug. 24.
“Numerous sources supporting the truth of the allegedly defamatory statements were presented to this Court. Had the material submitted been accepted for consideration, this case could not have proceeded, even at this early stage.
“Should a court look only at the allegations in a complaint and disregard all evidence offered to demonstrate a public controversy at the inception of a lawsuit? Such an approach allows a public official to employ litigation to silence criticism and diminish debate in the public square.”
Nichols’ order also rejected dismissal requests from Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who engaged in litigation that alleged vote-rigging after the election.
The lawsuits filed by Powell in hotly contested regions have blown up in the former federal prosecutor’s face. Judges have criticized her for providing no evidence the election was rigged against Donald Trump.
After the election, Powell and Giuliani appeared at a press conference together to say they represented Trump and his campaign. Powell called Dominion a tool created to make sure Hugo Chavez never lost an election in Venezuela and said the company was imported to the United States for a similar purpose.
“After Dominion repeatedly put Lindell on formal written notice of specific facts and evidence disproving his false claims, and let him know that the lies were putting people’s lives in danger, Lindell repeated his lies and said, ‘I welcome them to come after me because I’ve got all the evidence and then they’ll finally see it,’ and ‘I dare Dominion to sue me, because then it will get out faster,’” the lawsuit says.
The amount of statements Dominion alleges were defamatory was too countless for Nichols to fully summarize, he wrote. Dominion says it has suffered more than $650 million in damages.
Nichols ruled against transferring the cases to other jurisdictions that the defendants said were more appropriate.
“(O)n a motion to dismiss for improper venue, the question is not ‘which district is the ‘best’ venue’ or which ‘has the most significant connection’; it is ‘whether the district the plaintiff chose had a substantial connection to the claim,’” Nichols wrote.
“And Dominion has easily alleged in-District conduct comprising ‘a substantial part’ of the events giving rise to its claims: this is where Powell made numerous in-person and televised appearances in which she voiced her claims to D.C. audiences, where she rented hotel rooms and represented Michael Flynn, and where Lindell touted his relationship with President Trump and spoke at several in-person rallies.”