California
Judge tells Devin Nunes for 3rd time he can’t sue Twitter over anonymous tweets
A Virginia judge on Thursday told Rep. Devin Nunes for the third time that he cannot sue Twitter over tweets made by a fake cow, a parody account of his mother and a Republican political strategist.
Judge John Marshall first told Nunes, R-Tulare, in a June ruling that he could not sue Twitter for negligence as part of his lawsuit. Nunes had argued that Twitter was negligent in allowing the two Twitter parody accounts known as Devin Nunes’ Cow and Devin Nunes’ Mom and Republican strategist Liz Mair write messages that the congressman believed were defamatory about him.
Marshall issued a second ruling in July, clarifying Twitter was no longer a defendant in the lawsuit.
Nunes then filed a new complaint in the same court four days after that ruling.
This time, Nunes dropped his allegation that the San Francisco social media company was negligent, and instead alleged it was responsible for the messages by “aiding and abetting” the anonymous writers who criticize him.
Marshall said in a new ruling it was too late for the congressman to amend his complaint against Twitter and that the company’s dismissal from the case stands.
“(Nunes) did not file a motion for leave to amend to add a count against Twitter until July 28, four days after the order had been entered dismissing Twitter from the case and over a month after (Nunes) had been notified of the dismissal of Twitter by the court’s opinion letter,” Marshall wrote. “The court denies (Nunes’) request for leave to amend as the dismissal of Twitter as a defendant occurred prior to the filing of a motion for leave to amend.”
Nunes’ lawyer Steven Biss suggested in an Aug. 7 letter to Marshall that the congressman intends to appeal the decision.
“If it is the court’s intention that the July 24, 2020 order is a final order as to Twitter, then for purposes of appeal, we need a ruling on the motion for leave to amend.”
Nunes began filing lawsuits against media organizations and critics last year, alleging in various cases that journalists and others conspired to defame him.
Two other lawsuits Nunes has filed have been dismissed this year — one against a journalist and the owner of Esquire magazine for writing a story about Nunes’ family’s farm in Iowa, and the other against the investigative research firm Fusion GPS.
In both dismissals, judges said Nunes had failed to properly state a claim, meaning the statements Nunes said were defamatory did not rise to a legal standard of defamation.
But Nunes has not dropped either of those cases either. He re-filed the complaint against Fusion GPS, which is still pending in court, and filed to appeal the decision in the Esquire case Friday.
He is also suing The Washington Post, CNN and McClatchy, the owner of the largest newspaper in Nunes’ district, the Fresno Bee. In all of those cases, judges are currently considering motions to dismiss. McClatchy has called Nunes’ lawsuit against the company a “baseless attack on local journalism.”
Nunes’ lawsuit against the other three defendants in the Twitter case is continuing in Marshall’s court. Mair is the only other party to the lawsuit who has been served since the identities of the anonymous Twitter accounts are unknown.
Mair has also filed to dismiss the lawsuit as it relates to her, saying her tweets are all protected speech and not defamatory. The court has not ruled on that motion yet.
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