AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
- Mike Lindell and his company MyPillow haven't filed answers to Dominion's defamation lawsuit.
- A judge ruled in August that Dominion's lawsuits against MyPillow, Lindell, Sidney Powell, and Giuliani could proceed.
- Giuliani and Powell filed responses, but MyPillow and Lindell have dragged their feet.
MyPillow and its CEO Mike Lindell still haven't given the court an answer to the $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems filed against them in February.
Attorneys for Lindell and his company asked the court to dismiss the case in April, but US District Judge Carl J. Nichols ruled in August that it could proceed.
Since then, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell - the two other 2020 election conspiracy theorists Dominion sued around the same time it sued Lindell - have provided thorough answers to the lawsuits against them.
But MyPillow and Lindell haven't.
Instead, they've appealed technical details for Nichols' August ruling, arguing that Dominion should be held to a high standard in defamation law. Attorneys for MyPillow and Lindell have argued that they don't have to answer Dominion's allegations until an appeals court sorts out those details.
The pillow mogul's delay was the subject of a court hearing Monday morning held remotely from the US District Court in Washington, DC. Attorneys for Dominion asked Nichols to set a deadline for MyPillow and Lindell to respond to the original lawsuit's allegations.
Dominion alleged that Lindell defamed the company, pushing conspiracy theories about its election devices being hacked in order to make his company's pillows popular with supporters of now-former President Donald Trump.
Dominion sued Lindell and MyPillow several weeks after it filed defamation lawsuits against Powell and Giuliani. Powell and Giuliani also filed motions to dismiss; in his August ruling, Nichols considered all three of the lawsuits together and allowed them all to proceed.
Giuliani filed an answer to the lawsuit against him on August 25, and Powell filed an answer on September 24. Both argued that their conspiratorial remarks were protected by the First Amendment.
At Monday's hearing, Nichols asked lawyers for Dominion, MyPillow, and Lindell to meet and submit filings by November 5. They will need to elaborate their legal arguments for whether MyPillow and Lindell need to file a response before the appellate courts decide on their technical questions, and whether Dominion can proceed with discovery in the meanwhile.
At the same time, Nichols is overseeing a separate set of defamation lawsuits Dominion filed in August. The election technology company has sued Newsmax, One America News, and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne over false claims about its role in the 2020 presidential election.
source https://www.businessinsider.com/mypillow-mike-lindell-havent-answered-dominion-defamation-lawsuit-2021-10