The Supreme Court rules Mike Lindell must face a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit in the Dominion at the start of a new term: He also declines to hear “bump stock” challenges, but votes to hear the crucial case of immunity on social media
- Monday is the official first day of updates in the Supreme Court’s new term
- It is the first term in office for newly appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
- Replacing Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, Jackson’s appointment has little impact on the composition of the Conservative-dominated court
- Among its first decisions, the court denied Trump ally Mike Lindell’s motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems
- The company accused Lindell of knowingly lying about their voting machines
The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of MyPillow CEO and staunch Trump ally Mike Lindell against an August 2021 decision that forced him to face the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a final bid from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of Donald Trump’s most loyal 2020 voters, to throw off a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit.
It’s one of several high-profile updates to kick off the High Court’s new term – the first for newly appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black female lawyer on the bench.
The court also declined to hear a challenge to the federal ban on stockpiles, avoiding a second landmark Second Amendment case in two years after it struck a blow at New York State’s gun control laws last term.
In its decision on Lindell, the Supreme Court is deferring to a lower court decision that allowed the lawsuit to proceed in August 2021.
The right-wing businessman is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for fueling Trump’s claims that the company’s machines, used across the country on Election Day 2020, were rigged in favor of President Joe Biden.
Dominion sued Lindell in February 2021 and has filed similar lawsuits against former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
However, one challenge the court has picked up is guaranteed to rock the social media sphere.
Judges will consider the broad immunity afforded to Internet companies by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
Section 230 exempts these companies from much of the liability associated with user content and gives them legal protections for removing content that violates platform policies and guidelines.
Trump first brought the rule to national attention during his presidency when he complained about the policy and attempted to repeal it.
It marks the beginning of Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first term, the first black female lawyer to sit on the High Court
Because she replaced fellow Liberal judge Stephen Breyer, for whom she worked, Jackson’s appointment has little impact on the composition of the Conservative-controlled court
Since then, it has come under scrutiny from both Democrats and Republicans, who wonder if Section 230 immunities give social media companies too much unchecked leverage.
The case, scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday, involves a 23-year-old Mexican-American student from California named Nohemi Gonzalez who was killed by ISIS terrorists while studying abroad in Paris.
Gonzalez was one of 130 to die in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, the deadliest attack in French peacetime history.
Her family sued Google, claiming that its subsidiary YouTube was partially responsible for Gonzalez’s death because its algorithm promoted ISIS and pro-ISIS videos to spread the terrorist group’s message.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Gonzalez v. Google, allege that Google violated anti-terrorism statutes.
But California’s US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last year that Google was protected by Section 230 — a decision that will see the new Supreme Court reconsider that notion.
The Supreme Court also dealt a blow to pro-gun groups when it upheld a federal law enacted after the deadly 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
It imposed a ban on shock stores, devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to function like machine guns.
A Utah gun lobbyist and other pro-2nd Amendment groups have challenged Trump’s reclassification of stockpiles under a federal ban on machine gun ownership following the 2017 shooting.
When the Supreme Court denied the gun groups’ appeal, it affirmed that the ban on shotgun stocks fell within this federal law.
This was followed by a 6-3 verdict in June, in which the conservative majority of the court struck down New York’s strict rules on concealed carry of handguns.