Judge Sanctions MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell For Wasting The Court’s Time
from the being-stupid-in-public-can-be-costly dept
"Mike Lindell just used to be a guy selling overpriced pillows to people who liked to buy overpriced pillows. But when Donald Trump was elected, he threw his entire company under the Trump campaign bus, making it clear Lindell was willing to ride The Donald’s coat tails into relevance. What used to be just a pillow manufacturer was now The Preferred Pillow of the Far RightTM, a social cause tied to sleep — the ultimate form of slacktivism.
When Americans unsurprisingly decided to dump an inveterate liar who proved incapable of handling a pandemic, Lindell sprung into action. As persona grata of the Trump campaign, Lindell was asked to provide his nonexistent legal expertise about the 2020 election. He agreed with Trump — another person who had no evidence of election fraud — that the election was fraudulent.
. . .The opinion [PDF] makes it clear Lindell is wasting public resources, something the court is unwilling to allow.
. . .All of Lindell’s claims (which range from the aforementioned RICO to the First Amendment to the Fourteenth Amendment) have failed. And Lindell was on notice these would fail, considering the absolute absence of precedent backing his views. Given these facts, the court says Lindell should be sanctioned for engaging in bad faith, politically motivated litigation.
> Lindell now owes Smartmatic money for dragging the company into his baseless “the election was stolen” lawsuit.
The Court agrees with Smartmatic that Lindell has asserted at least some groundless claims. See Sanction’s Mot. at 18 (contending that Lindell has asserted groundless “factual allegations, accusations of criminality, theories of liability within his existing claims, and causes of action . . . against Smartmatic”). In particular, the Court concludes that at the very least Lindell’s claim against Smartmatic under the Support or Advocacy Clause falls on the frivolous side of the line (other claims do too). As a result, the Court orders Lindell and his previous counsel to pay some of the fees and costs Smartmatic has incurred defending itself and moving for sanctions under Rule 11.
It’s unclear at this point how much this will cost Lindell and his pillow company. But there was a way to sell pillows and a way to steer clear of sanctions but Lindell has managed to screw up both efforts. There may be a small subset of Americans willing to buy pillows for political reasons, but Lindell’s decision to attach himself to the Trump Train is likely going to cost him far more in real dollars than can be made up by selling bedroom accessories to a small minority of US residents who think buying pillows is a political statement."
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