Courts

Judge Orders Plaintiff To Pay Attorneys Fees In Arizona Election Case -- This Is Why You Don't File Loser Lawsuits

Harsh -- but deserved-- benchslap follows.

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Arizona Superior Court Judge John Hannah has ruled the Arizona Republican Party has to pay $18,000+ in legal fees after suing AZ Secretary of State Katie Hobbs over the 2020 election. The plaintiff in this case had sought a second hand-count audit of election results, despite the zero evidence of fraud or irregularities.

With the case thrown out, the judge saddled the plaintiff with attorney fees, and oof, the decision is brutal. As reported by Law and Crime, Judge Hannah went after the “groundless” case filed “without substantial justification,” saying the “relief sought was not legally available from the parties that were sued at the time the suit was filed.”

He continued:

“The other parties pointed out these procedural defects in their motions to dismiss, but the plaintiff’s response to the motions barely addressed them,” Hannah wrote. “The response to the fee application mostly continues to brush them aside even though they were the basis of the dismissal order. The plaintiff focuses instead on what section 16-602 says about hand count audit procedures, on the reasons for the hasty filing of the complaint, and on perceived public concerns about the election’s ‘integrity’ or ‘legitimacy.’ None of that addresses the viability of the actual claims.”

As it turns out, burying your head in the sand is not a great legal strategy. Who knew?!? Oh, everyone? Cool, cool.

Hannah was pretty pissed at plaintiff’s claim that “every election is subject to being investigated, audited in strict accordance with the law, and challenged for falsity”:

“That statement shows the groundlessness of the plaintiff’s legal position, because it is flat wrong as a matter of law. A demand for ‘strict legal compliance’ with statutory election procedures is not cognizable after the election under any circumstances, including an election contest pursuant to A.R.S. section,” Hannah wrote. “An election challenge based on a procedural statute states a cause of action only if the plaintiff alleges that fraud has occurred or that the result would have been different had proper procedures been followed. To say as the plaintiff does that this case was ‘about auditing results, which by definition is simply checking them to ensure voter confidence and integrity,’ and that fraud was ‘not germane to the case,’ is to say that there was no colorable cause of action in the first place.”

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Judge Hannah also went after plaintiff for the obvious political motivation behind the case:

“The plaintiff is effectively admitting that the suit was brought primarily for an improper purpose,” Hannah wrote. “It is conceding that the method of sampling ballots for the hand count audit is a minor procedural requirement, not a necessary step toward a fair election. It is saying that it filed this lawsuit for political reasons. ‘Public mistrust’ is a political issue, not a legal or factual basis for litigation.”

But of course, plaintiff’s lawyers are far from chagrined. One of the lawyers on the case, Jack Wilenchik, vowed to appeal the decision:

“An order like this only serves to stop plaintiffs from rightfully invoking the courts to hear their issues, and it encourages public distrust in the government for being openly hostile to them,” he said in a statement to the Arizona Capitol Times. “For a county judge to say that widespread public mistrust in an election is an ‘improper’ reason for a political party to be in his court is sorely disrespectful to the view of the many Americans whom I am proud to represent.”

Some lessons are apparently hard to learn.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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