“MyPillow CEO Can’t Delay Defamation Trial Over Atty AI Errors”
When Did the Duty to Preserve Arise? – At Time of Plaintiff’s Pre-Suit Investigation
May 11, 2025“This Was a Collective Debacle”
May 16, 2025In MyPillow CEO Can’t Delay Defamation Trial Over Atty AI Errors – Law360 (May 14, 2025), Dorothy Atkins wrote that the Judge “denied MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s request to continue a defamation jury trial set for early June, finding her threat of discipline and media attention over mistakes stemming from defense counsel’s use of artificial intelligence in drafting briefs don’t warrant delaying trial in the lawsuit.”
For a discussion of the AI issue, please see “MyPillow Attys Blame Filing Error After Judge Suspects AI Use” (May 5, 2025), and Coomer v. Lindell, 2025 WL 1201993, at *1 (D. Colo. Apr. 23, 2025).
Ms. Atkins reported that the court rejected “defense counsel’s arguments that her recent threats of a disciplinary referral and sanctions for filing a response brief in February with 30 `defective citations,` presumably caused by AI-hallucinations, has caused Lindell’s legal team `significant distractions from trial preparation` and generated news headlines, creating potential issues about jury bias.”
The Law360 article states that the Judge acknowledged the attorney’s prompt correction of the deficient filing and the proximity of trial and Ms. Atkins wrote:
“That may be true,” the judge stated. “But the order to show cause would not have issued so close to trial — or at all — had defendants reviewed their filing at any point between its submission and the final pretrial/trial preparation conference or filed a properly cited brief in the first instance.”
The court allotted additional time for voir dire.
The case is Coomer v. Lindell, et al., Case Number 1:22-cv-01129(D. Col. May 14, 2025). As of this writing, it is not available on Westlaw. This blog is based on the excellent Law360 coverage.
