CIVIL 20-13134 United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division King v. Whitmer Decided Aug 25, 2021 CIVIL 20-13134 08-25-2021 TIMOTHY KING, et al., Plaintiffs, v. GRETCHEN WHITMER, et al., Defendants., and CITY OF DETROIT, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY, and ROBERT DAVIS, Intervenor-Defendants. LINDA V. PARKER U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE OPINION AND ORDER LINDA V. PARKER U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process. It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election. It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here. Individuals may have a right (within certain bounds) to disseminate allegations of fraud unsupported by law or fact in the public sphere. But attorneys cannot exploit their privilege and access to the judicial process to do the same. And when an attorney has done so, sanctions are in order. Here's why. America's civil litigation system affords individuals the privilege to file a lawsuit to allege a violation of law. Individuals, however, must litigate within the established parameters for filing a claim. Such parameters are set forth in statutes, rules of civil procedure, local court rules, and professional rules of responsibility and ethics. Every attorney who files a claim on behalf of a client is charged with the obligation to know these statutes and rules, as well as the law allegedly violated. Specifically, attorneys have an obligation to the judiciary, their profession, and the public (i) to conduct some degree of due diligence before presenting allegations as truth; (ii) to advance only tenable claims; and (iii) to proceed with a lawsuit in good faith and based on a proper purpose. Attorneys also have an obligation to dismiss a lawsuit when it becomes clear that the requested relief is unavailable. This matter comes before the Court upon allegations that Plaintiffs' counsel did none of these things. To be clear, for the purpose of the pending sanctions motions, the Court is neither being asked to decide nor has it decided whether there was fraud in the 2020 presidential election in the State of Michigan.1 Rather, the question before the Court is whether Plaintiffs' attorneys engaged in litigation practices that are abusive and, in turn, sanctionable. The short answer is yes. 1 In fact, resolution of that issue was never appropriately before the Court for the reasons stated in the Court's December 7, 2020 ruling. (See ECF No. 62.) The attorneys who filed the instant lawsuit abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and 1

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