This case was filed on December 22, 2020, more than a month-and-a-half after the November 3, 2020 Presidential election. As filed, the suit was a class action brought on behalf of all American registered voters, alleging that their constitutional right to vote for President somehow was unconstitutionally infringed or burdened by the Defendants. The Defendants included State Officials, Governors, Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”), Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. (“Dominion”), and the Center for Tech and Civic Life) (“CTCL”).
On April 28, 2021, the District Court dismissed the entire case for lack of standing, granting motions to dismiss filed by Facebook, Dominion, and CTCL. In the Order dismissing the case, the District Court denied Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to Amend, finding that any amendment would be futile. A copy of the Order dismissing the case can be found below.
After dismissal, Facebook, Dominion, and CTCL moved for sanctions pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 11; 28 U.S.C. § 1927; and the Court’s inherent authority. The State Officials from Michigan moved for sanctions pursuant to Rule 11, the Court’s inherent authority, and under 28 U.S.C. § 1927. The State Officials from Pennsylvania also moved for sanctions. Their sanctions motion differs only in that they do not seek sanctions under Rule 11 because Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the Pennsylvania Defendants from the case within the time provided under the safe-harbor provisions of that Rule. (collectively, the “Motions for Sanctions”).
On August 3, 2021, the District Court entered its 68-page Order Granting the Motions for Sanctions. A copy of the Order can be found below.
In granting the Motions for Sanctions, the District Court found:
-The lawsuit was filed in bad faith;
-Plaintiffs’ counsel’s arguments on the issue of standing were frivolous;
-Plaintiffs counsel’s act of filing a lawsuit in Colorado against State Officials was not warranted by existing law or a non-frivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or establishing new law. To the contrary, it was obvious there was no personal jurisdiction in Colorado over these defendants and the lawsuit against them should never have been filed in Colorado;
-That, in light of the unusual and highly volatile circumstances of the case and the surrounding political environment, Plaintiffs’ counsel did not conduct a reasonable inquiry into whether the factual contentions had evidentiary support. Without doing any independent confirmation, they improperly accepted allegations from other failed election fraud lawsuits, improperly accepting allegations from those lawsuits and from media reports at face value, and cut and pasted them into their original and amended complaint;
-Because of its inherent legal flaws and the inadequate inquiry into the factual allegations by Plaintiffs’ counsel, this lawsuit should never have been filed in the first place. No reasonable attorney admitted to practice before the District Court would file such a document.
-Plaintiffs’ counsel’s filing of a motion for leave to amend, without addressing the obvious fatal problems with standing and lack of personal jurisdiction, while attempting to add RICO claims based on a TIME magazine article that provided no support for such claims, was a violation of 28 U.S.C. § 1927 in that the attempt to amend unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied the proceedings;
-Plaintiffs’ counsel improperly included in a federal complaint highly disputed and inflammatory statements by the former President stating categorically that ““DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE” without doing anything to independently verify the truth of that statement;
-Sanctions are merited under Rule 11 (except with respect to Pennsylvania) and 28 U.S.C. § 1927;
-Sanctions are further merited under this Court’s inherent authority because of the bad faith nature of the filing of the suit that Plaintiffs’ counsel knew or should have known was doomed to failure from the very beginning;
-That sanctions are required to deter the filing of frivolous, politically motivated lawsuits such as this in the future and to compensate the Defendants for the unnecessary expenditure of private and public money in defense of a frivolous lawsuit filed without reasonable legal basis and without a reasonable inquiry into the facts.
The District Court Ordered that Plaintiffs’ counsel shall jointly and severally pay the moving Defendants’ reasonable attorneys for (1) having to prepare and argue the motions to dismiss, and (2) having to prepare and argue the oppositions to the Motion for Leave to Amend.
It was Further Ordered that within 14 days from the date of this Order, the moving Defendants are directed to submit to Plaintiffs’ counsel detailed billing records of each lawyer, reflecting the time spent on which tasks, with accompanying hourly rates, so that the Parties may attempt to confer and stipulate to a reasonable figure that would establish an appropriate sanction award for each moving Defendant.