Nunes Family Sues For Defamation, Shocked To Find That Discovery Comes Before KA-CHING

If only their lawyer had told them!

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

It should probably have occurred to Rep. Devin Nunes’s family that this might happen.

When the congressman’s father and brother sued reporter Ryan Lizza for implying that NuStar Farms, the family dairy, hired undocumented workers, they should probably have anticipated that they’d have to prove that their employees were all legal. And certainly their lawyer should have told them that they’d have to surrender employment records and sit for depositions if they were foolish enough to file such a suit.

But the Nunes family is represented by sparklemagic libelslander lawyer Steven Biss, a one-man casebook on slapstick SLAPP suits. And so we find ourselves trying to piece together a heavily redacted motion from lawyers for Hearst Magazines, Lizza’s previous employer, which appears to allege a shocking variety of misconduct by the infamous defamation lawyer.

In an apparent attempt to bollix up depositions of NuStar employees, Biss first asserted that it was illegal to depose them, then claimed to represent the witnesses as employees of the dairy and agreed to accept service of process. At the deposition itself, he decided he did not represent them after all, but then disrupted the proceeding in some fashion so shocking that it is being blacked out of the court filing.

The employees’ testimony as to why they showed up for the deposition without the subpoenaed documents is redacted, but it immediately precedes a section captioned “The Court Should Direct Plaintiffs’ Counsel to Abide by Federal and Ethics Rules.”

It appears that something outrageous or possibly outright criminal happened at that deposition, justifying imposition of an extreme remedy by the court.

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“Under the Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct, a lawyer may not proffer false testimony or allow a client to testify falsely in a deposition; nor can a lawyer allow false testimony in a deposition to stand on the record after counsel becomes aware that it is false,” the Defendants remind the court. “In other words, a lawyer ‘must not allow the tribunal to be misled by false statements of law or fact or evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.’”

Biss also appears to have made an unsubtle threat to opposing counsel, writing in a May 6 email, “Finally, your ex-Marshall continue to sniff around Sibley.  Please remind them that we are watching everything.”

Hearst is asking the court for a remedy so extraordinary that the remedy itself is redacted.

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What’s behind those bars? Is it “Appoint Counsel For Witnesses To Remind Them That Perjury Is a Crime?” Could it be “Bar Mr. Biss From Attending Said Deposition And Force Local Counsel To Cover It?” Or perhaps “Duct Tape Plaintiffs’ Attorney’s Mouth Shut For Duration Of The Case?”

Whatever’s behind there, it’s not good. Well, not good for Biss and his clients. For us watching this demented fireball of incompetence, it’s amazing.

Nunes v. Lizza [Docket via Court Listener]


Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.