CT Blue

RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS

Defendant Sidney Powell has moved to dismiss this libel action brought by Smartmatic, a manufacturer of voting machines. Powell is a lawyer who puts herself forward as being an expert in election law. She has, while purportedly acting on behalf of the former guy appeared on Fox and other right wing media platforms claiming that Plaintiff Smartmatic’s voting machines were rigged, thereby throwing the recent election to Joseph Biden. Plaintiff has suffered damages as a result.

Powell initially recites the legal requirements for proving libel, then states:

This inquiry is determined as a matter of law. Bucher v. Roberts, 595 P.2d 235, 241 (Colo. 1979) (“Whether a particular statement constitutes fact or opinion is a question of law.”). Analyzed under these factors, and even assuming, arguendo, that each of the statements alleged in the Complaint could be proved true or false, no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.

Defendant thus refuses to admit that her repeated allegations that plaintiff rigged its voting machines were fabrications, but maintains that if they were fabrications, no reasonable person would have believed them. Defendant thus implicitly asks this court to suspend judgment as to whether the statements she made were true, while arguing that no reasonable person should believe they could be true. For the reasons stated below, this court is constrained to do exactly that: pretend the statements might have been true, yet rule that because no reasonable person would have believed them, defendant was free to spread her fabrications without legal consequence to her.

Plaintiff submits that the purpose of libel law, like any other tort law, is to compensate the plaintiff for damages suffered as a result of a legal wrong. Defendant, however, argues that there should be an exception: that a person may engage in libel so long as those libels are directed at unreasonable people who believe the lies. This implies that any person may spread an outrageous lie designed to be believed by Fox viewers (who apparently are, by definition, not reasonable people) and that any murder, death threats, injuries to business, or destruction of property (such as that in the US Capitol by the unreasonable people to whom defendant apparently claims to have intended to direct her remarks) that may result from the actions of people motivated by defendants statements of asserted fact must be borne by the plaintiff, despite being caused by the defendant, because those people are not reasonable.

The Supreme Court has not yet carved out an exception from the laws of libel for right wing conspiracists. However, this court is obligated to make a good faith effort to determine what the court would do when presented with these facts. The court finds that the Supreme Court will likely rule that there is an exception to the law of libel for individuals who propagate lies intended to benefit the Republican Party, Republican candidates, or intended to stir up resentment among unreasonable people provided those people are predominately white. The court is unable to conjure up the precise obfuscatory language the court will employ to do this, but is confident of the net result. The court also notes the persuasive precedent of McDougal v. Tucker Carlson, et. al., in which a district court ruled that Tucker Carlson is incapable of libeling anyone, because no reasonable person would believe anything he said.

Plaintiff argues that such a ruling would give the media carte blanche to libel anyone and get off the hook by simply arguing that no reasonable person should have believed them. The plaintiff is simply incorrect. For example, were Rachel Maddow to allow a guest to spread a falsehood of the nature of that spread by the defendant on Fox, she would be liable for the simple reason that reasonable people do believe what she and her guests have to say.

Plaintiff argues that if such is the case, then Fox and its ilk should be required to run disclaimers to the effect that its viewers can not believe a word anyone says on their media platforms. The court declines to issue such an order because free speech.

For the foregoing reasons, the court grants the motion to dismiss.