Some lawsuits are so deficient on their face that no reasonable lawyer would think they’d have a chance at victory. So why are they filed? One answer, especially for public figures, may be to take advantage of the news cycle. The filing of litigation can be accompanied by great fanfare. The case’s disposition frequently gets only nominal notice.
Applying this premise to specific cases is not scientific, but some suits do seem to walk like a duck and quack like a duck.
Rather than picking an easy target like Sidney Powell’s “release the Kraken” litigation, consider the actions taken by Congressman Devin Nunes. To date he has filed libel or defamation suits in four different federal courts related to his involvement in Ukrainian matters. All of the suits were announced with great fanfare on his preferred media sites. Receiving less publicity, if any, is the fact that he has already lost two of these cases on motions to dismiss. In the other two cases, motions to dismiss are pending.
What brought these cases to mind is this week’s resolution of a defamation action filed by Nunes senior advisor Derek Harvey. In this lawsuit (brought by the same lawyers who represent Nunes and covering similar Ukraine activity), Harvey relied on 20 statements he attributed to CNN.
The court dismissed the entire case, much of it on jurisdictional grounds. But the court continued:
“The Plaintiff Harvey has alleged twenty defamatory
statements. He has failed to plausibly claim how any of these statements are
legally defamatory, and twelve of them were apparently not published by
defendant CNN. The remaining eight statements are privileged as a matter of
law. Nevertheless, if plaintiff possesses facts to cure such manifest deficiencies
addressed in this Memorandum Opinion, he may file an amended complaint within
fifteen days. Such an amended complaint may be subject to dismissal by reason
of repeated failure to cure deficiencies or futility in the amendment.”
Manifest deficiencies.
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