Mike Lindell gives a thumbs up as he passes by a rally for supporters of former President Donald Trump, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee).
A federal judge on Friday dealt erstwhile bedding titan and stalwart election denialist Mike Lindell a significant loss in a defamation lawsuit filed by voting software and hardware company Smartmatic Corp.
In a 63-page order, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan, a Joe Biden appointee, found Lindell made several defamatory statements about Smartmatic and its voting machines in 2020 and 2021.
The parties spent years in motions practice – jockeying for legal position and essaying various theories of liability and defense.
Now, ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the judge decidedly ruled in the plaintiffs” favor – leaving only some ancillary-but-necessary issues and the defendants’ liability up to a civil jury.
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“In summary, the Court concludes that as a matter of law, the statements give rise to a defamation action and fall within one of the categories of defamation per se,” the order reads. “[T]he Court concludes that no reasonable juror could conclude that any of the statements was true. Therefore, the Court grants Smartmatic’s motion for partial summary judgment on its defamation claim, leaving the issues of malice and damages for trial.”
In January 2022, Smartmatic sued Lindell over claims “electronic voting machines were used to affect the outcome of the 2020 Election,” Bryan explains – referring to a series of never-proven theories that President Donald Trump actually defeated Joe Biden.
Those claims were first made during a pro-Trump bus tour, the court noted. Then, such claims were repeated in documentaries, on podcasts, radio shows, TV shows, and during a “a three-day in-person and live-streamed symposium” held by Lindell himself, Bryan explains.
In sum, Smartmatic sued over 51 discrete statements.
The years-in-the-making litigation has resulted in a finding that each statement was about a purported fact which could be proven true or false. This is effectively, the initial inquiry in such a dispute.
From the order, at length:
Statements 1–51 present or imply the existence of objectively verifiable facts that can be proven true or false. Lindell was not purporting merely to express his opinion or surmise as to a subjective topic; rather, the premise of Lindell’s documentaries and media appearances is that Lindell and his guests have uncovered objectively true facts and wish to share those facts with the audience. Thus, as a matter of law, each of Statements 1–51 is sufficiently factual as to give rise to a defamation action.
After surveying the statements at length, the court found they were all false, to the last.
“The Court concludes that, based on the record presented, no reasonable trier of fact could find that any of the statements at issue are true,” Bryan goes on. Each of the actionable statements in this case conveys at least one of three overarching messages: (1) that Smartmatic machines stole the 2020 Election or otherwise manipulated ballots that changed the outcome of the 2020 Election;25 (2) that Smartmatic [ballot marking devices] were connected to the internet and, therefore, susceptible to hacking; and (3) that Smartmatic designed its machines to manipulate ballots and change election results. None of these messages can be true.”
The court also found the statements at issue qualified as defamation per se – a permutation of the basic defamation tort which concerns “a person’s business, trade, or professional conduct.”
Aside from damages, the court left it up to jurors to decide whether Lindell’s statements were made with “actual malice.”
Actual malice is the most exacting and hardest-to-prove standard in defamation law. The standard typically becomes operative when the person claiming to be defamed is a public figure.
Here, however, the standard – and resulting determination – is relevant because of what Lindell’s comments were about.
The court notes that this is an exceedingly important inquiry “because the statements at issue here implicate a matter of public concern, Smartmatic cannot recover any presumed damages unless it can establish that the statements were made” with such malice.
