King v. Whitmer CIVIL 20-13134 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 25, 2021) For example, to support the allegation that Defendants “fraudulently add[ed] tens of thousands of new ballots and/or new voters to the [Qualified Voter File] . . . on November 4, 2020, ”63 Plaintiffs quote the Sitto Affidavit64. When the Court inquired about factual assertions in the Sitto Affidavit (Id. at Pg ID 5412), Kleinhendler responded that “[t]hese were affidavits that were submitted by counsel in [Costantino]” (id. at Pg ID 5414-15). Plaintiffs' attorneys admit to similarly lifting the Carone Affidavit from Costantino and filing it in this case as evidentiary support without engaging in an independent inquiry as to its merits.65 The attorneys admit the same as to the Bomer Affidavit. (Id. at Pg ID 5448-49.) And suggest the same as to the Jacob Affidavit. (Id. at Pg ID 5440-45.) In fact, almost every (if not every) non-expert affidavit attached to Plaintiffs' pleadings here (see ECF Nos. 6-3 to 6-6, 6-13, 6-14) was filed by other attorneys in prior lawsuits. See Complaint Exs. 1-4, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-01083 (W.D. Mich. filed Nov. 11, 2020), ECF Nos. 1-2 to 1-4; Complaint Exs. A-F, Costantino, No. 20014780 (Wayne Cnty. Cir. Ct. filed Nov. 8, 2020). 63 (ECF No. 6 at Pg. ID 942 ¶ 190(a) (citing IIB).) 64 (See IIB - “Election Workers Fraudulently Forged, Added, Removed or Otherwise Altered Information on Ballots, Qualified Voter List and Other Voting Records, ” Subsection 1 - “Election Workers Fraudulently Added ‘Tens of Thousands' of New Ballots and New Voters in the Early Morning and Evening of November 4, ” ECF No. 6 at Pg ID 899 ¶ 82 (quoting Sitto Aff., ECF No. 6-4 at PDF Pg 40-42).) 65 (ECF No. 157 at Pg ID 5433 (Ms. Haller: “I would just point out that the [Carone Affidavit] . . . [is] documented as a document from the [Costantino] court ....It is not represented to be a document that is a document from a different court.... It is a document that is not hearsay. It is a simple document that is a sworn statement from another court that is cited to by our expert, and we rely upon it to the extent that it's cited in the complaint.”).) When the Court asked whether Plaintiffs' counsel inquired as to the affidavits copied and pasted from the other cases, Plaintiffs' counsel dipped and dodged the question and did not disclaim the City's counsel's assertions that they did not. (See, e.g., ECF No. 157 at Pg ID 5440-47, 5452-55.) “[O]ther lawyers saw it” and “[t]hey believed it to be appropriate for submission to the Court in that circumstance, ” Plaintiffs' attorneys argued. (Id. at Pg ID 5445.) “[Y]ou've got to be able to trust when something has been submitted by counsel because of the oath that we take” knowing that “everybody else within the profession” therefore believes that the attorney's submission “should have tremendous value.” (Id. at Pg ID 5419.) Clearly, Plaintiffs' counsel relied on the assessment of counsel for the plaintiffs in other cases as to the affidavits from those cases that Plaintiffs' counsel recycled here. This is not okay. The Court remains baffled after trying to ascertain what convinced Plaintiffs' counsel otherwise. “Substituting another lawyer's judgment for one's own does not constitute reasonable inquiry.” Schottenstein v. Schottenstein, 230 F.R.D. 355, 361-62 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); see also Pravic v. U.S. Indus.-Clearing, 109 F.R.D. 620, 622 (E.D. Mich. 1986) (holding that counsel's reliance on a memorandum prepared by a separate law firm was not reasonable because, among other things, counsel “did no independent research”). In short, Plaintiffs' counsel cannot hide behind the attorneys who filed Costantino or any other case to establish that Plaintiffs' counsel fulfilled their duty to ensure that the affidavits they pointed to as evidentiary support for the pleadings here, in fact had any chance of ever amounting to evidence.66 was created by us. It is not represented to be anything other than what it was, which 34