The judge overseeing a defamation case against Elon Musk has denied every party’s request for sanctions, hopefully sending everyone back to the case appropriately chastened by the experience.
Time will tell.
Musk publicly tied a California student to a neo-Nazi fight, suggesting on social media that it was “a probable false flag” operation. At his deposition in the Texas case, Musk’s attorney, Quinn Emanuel’s Alex Spiro, repeatedly belittled the case and launched a string of speaking objections prompting a motion for sanctions. The plaintiff also noted that Spiro hadn’t even been admitted pro hac vice, a move that’s mostly a formality, but that the plaintiff claimed spoke to Spiro messing up a number of local rules. In response, Quinn Emanuel cross-moved for sanctions and proposed using time travel to retroactively admit Spiro to cure an issue with the pleadings.
The sanctions motion always represented a moon shot for the plaintiff, but, as we noted at the time, “using a deposition to denigrate the plaintiff’s case and the attorneys involved is a breach of professional decorum regardless of the specific Texas rules.” Musk’s interest in “hardcore” lawyering ended up dragging the whole case into petty motion practice and left an embarrassing video deposition.
The judge seemed uninterested in anyone’s complaints, denying the motion for sanctions and the cross-motion for sanctions, granting all the pro hac motions, and overruling all of Musk’s objections while also denying the motion to dismiss.
Will this bring down the temperature in the case… or will the hardcore come out again?
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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- Source: https://dealbreaker.com/2024/05/law-firm-avoids-sanctions-in-elon-musk-defamation-case
