Courts

Court Rules No Defamation In Claim That Mike Lindell Would Date A Normal Human Non-Pillow Woman

Now if Jane Krakowski sued because the news linked her to a pillow puffing crackpot ...

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(Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

On Friday a federal court in New York deflated MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s defamation suit against The Daily Mail’s parent company over an article linking him romantically to actress Jane Krakowski.

The piece, published in January 2021, alleged that the pair had engaged in a clandestine romance, with Lindell sending Krakowski gifts of flowers and liquor. As reporter Laura Collins, also a named defendant, noted in the original post both parties denied the relationship.

Enlisting the help of Gawker-slayer Charles Harder, Lindell sued for defamation, demanding that a jury be allowed to deliberate the grievous injury he’d suffered from the suggestion that he dated a beautiful woman, instead of maniacally fondling polyfoam bedding while ranting about voting machines being hacked by Chinese thermostats.

Lindell, a recovering addict and contributor to an eponymous treatment center, alleges that he was defamed by reporting that he sent champagne to Krakowski. According to the amended complaint, this “caused tremendous harm to his personal and professional reputation and prospective economic opportunities, as well as causing him significant humiliation and emotional distress” and “severely undermines Mr. Lindell’s hard-earned credibility, integrity and character in the field of addiction recovery as well as in religious communities.”

Here on Planet Earth, and in US District Judge Paul Crotty’s courtroom, it is not illegal to purchase alcoholic beverages. Nor is it illegal, or even scandalous, for two unmarried adults to engage in a romantic relationship, however odd. And thus the allegations are definitionally not defamatory under New York law.

“Dating an actress-secret or not-would not cause ‘public hatred, ‘shame,’ ‘ridicule,’ or any similar feeling towards Lindell,” Judge Crotty notes, adding later, “That is the sort of courtship ritual that traditional suitors practice every day.”

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Similarly the court reasons that “whatever Lindell’s personal history with addiction, buying alcohol for a dating partner would not reasonably expose him to ‘public hatred,’ shame,’ or ridicule.’ The purchase of alcohol is a legal and ordinary act.”

And Judge Crotty wasn’t biting on Lindell’s allegation that he had been defamed by implication, on the theory that the article necessarily implied that buying alcohol for Krakowski made him a “hypocrite” as a supporter of addiction recovery services. “It is the context of the Article as a whole-not the subjective (and perhaps unknown) context of Lindell’s outside life, including his nonprofit-that is relevant,” he wrote.

In their motion to dismiss, the media defendants argued that Lindell did a pretty good job of trashing his reputation on his own, thanks to his “advocacy of fake COVID-19 ‘cures,’ false theories about election fraud, and support of martial law.” But the court declined to reach the issue of incremental harm, simply dismissing the case for failure to state a legally cognizable claim.

Better luck next time, Pillow Dude. Maybe that defamatory RICO case against Dominion Voting Systems which just got transferred into Judge Reggie Walton’s courtroom will pay off.

Or, maybe not.

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Lindell v. Mail Media, Inc. (1:21-cv-00667) [Docket via Court Listener]

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

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