Steve Quest (p/k/a Montagraph) vs. Nicholas Robert Rekieta & Rekieta Law, LLC (2023)

[Balldo's Gate]

Rekieta has decided to turn a lolsuit that arose out of two idiots engaging in a shit-flinging match online and treat it as a challenge to make it as expensive as he possibly could. The judge seemed exasperated at the volume of material and that was before he reached for a interlocutory appeal.

 

[AnOminous]

Yes, Nick. Waste money appealing a decision in an attempt to convince an appeals court to force a local judge to apply another state's Anti-SLAPP statute that your own state has found unconstitutional. I'm sure this will work out perfectly in your favor.

I'm just going to go out on a limb here and repeat my previous opinion that taking out an interlocutory appeal has virtually no chance of success, and is the dumbest waste of money Nick has perpetrated yet. I would anticipate this gets shot down and quickly at huge cost for very little delay.

He must be speedrunning nigger rich eceleb to broke-ass bitch lolcow.

 

[Goofy Logic]

Is this going to follow the same arc as the Vic lol suit, where a desperate appeal falls flat on its face?

"Dammit, Reketia, we lost the case again!"

 

[AnOminous]

Can someone that has slept and isn't retarded explain what this means to someone that is both of the aforementioned?

He's attempting to appeal an otherwise unappealable order that occurs during trial, effectively interrupting the trial and going straight to appeal. For obvious reasons this is rarely granted and I'm not seeing any of the usual reasons for even trying this.

Other than a few kinds of order like injunctions, most trial court orders aren't appeal. You generally need something like a grave constitutional issue (that will become moot during trial) or a qualified or absolute immunity argument, where the right implicated is not to have to stand trial at all, i.e. most police actions that do not involve a clear violation of existing law.

I'm not seeing any of these. I'd guess he'll argue that there's somehow a constitutional right to have an anti-SLAPP statute imported by another state after your own state's Supreme Court threw out their own as unconstitutional under state law.

As far as I am concerned it is an excercise in futility. But hey Randazza is always willing to make an argument his client wants. If they pay through the nose for it.

My opinion, sight unseen, is they don't even hear it, much less decide in his favor. But hey, maybe Randazza has some razzle-dazzle argument the trial court judge got it so wrong it should be overturned now.

The argument that they should hear it, hinted at in the notice, is that it is in fact an immunity argument. So the road he has to go is that the Colorado statute not only provides the substantive benefits such as damages, but that it actually also overrides Minnesota's procedural rules which do not provide such an immunity. Then if he gets past the hurdle that (IMO) they shouldn't even hear this, they'd have to find that not only should they import the substantive and procedural law of another state, but that it overrides the findings of their own Supreme Court in throwing out a very similar statute.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Tired retard here, but I believe this means they're attempting to ask a second court's opinion on the judge's most recent ruling that the Colorado law wasn't applicable and that there wouldn't be a summary judgment. Essentially seeing if they can go over her head and throw this whole suit out now.

So doing something that has extremely low chance of success, but an extremely high chance of pissing off the judge if it fails? Sounds like a good idea!

 

[Mr. Manchester]

I think at this point he knows that it'll hurt his brand if he loses a lawsuit because he's the great legal mind of youtube. His paypigs will cry foul but those on the fence won't and his enemies will gladly point and laugh. Problem is, if a second court decides to call him a retard then it'll only make it worse. He's going double or nothing.

 

[TurboNAS]

Is it common to try to apply statutes from other states to your own? That sounds wrong otherwise why bother having your own state laws?

Isn’t this why people forum shop, trying to start a lawsuit in the most favorable place rather than in their home state?


This is some funny stuff, hats off to Randazza for milking this cow.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

Is it common to try to apply statutes from other states to your own? That sounds wrong otherwise why bother having your own state laws?

Isn’t this why people forum shop, trying to start a lawsuit in the most favorable place rather than in their home state?


This is some funny stuff, hats off to Randazza for milking this cow.

It’s a bunch of jurisdictional shit between where Nick’s business address is registered, where he lives and where Montegraph lives. Nick seems to be of the opinion that he didn’t personally slander Montegraph, his business did.

 

[BattleMage]

Is it common to try to apply statutes from other states to your own? That sounds wrong otherwise why bother having your own state laws?

Isn’t this why people forum shop, trying to start a lawsuit in the most favorable place rather than in their home state?


This is some funny stuff, hats off to Randazza for milking this cow.

It happens infrequently in situations where jurisdiction is murky. Sometimes it makes sense to have a trial in Texas but apply Arkansas law. This example of Nick attempting to apply Colorado law is a huge stretch, however. It's not impossible and there is a plausible way to achieve this, but Montegraph's argument makes more sense to the judge.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

He's attempting to appeal an otherwise unappealable order that occurs during trial, effectively interrupting the trial and going straight to appeal.

This is weird, imo, given their agreed-upon schedule. He was okay with the order back then, but isn’t now?

 

[talk talk talk]

Looks like the docs are filed with the MN court of appeals. Case No. A23-1337 has been assigned.

 

[waffle]

I wonder if they announced their intention to do this when they made the scheduling order and the trial date was set so far out with the expectation thst the scheduling order would be amended after the appeal?

 

[Useful_Mistake]

I wonder if they announced their intention to do this when they made the scheduling order

Somehow I doubt it

 

[BelUwUga]

Can someone that has slept and isn't retarded explain what this means to someone that is both of the aforementioned?

Visual representation:

 

[feral cat #6385]

He's attempting to appeal an otherwise unappealable order that occurs during trial, effectively interrupting the trial and going straight to appeal. For obvious reasons this is rarely granted and I'm not seeing any of the usual reasons for even trying this.

Maybe drive up the costs for Montegraph so he runs out of money and has to drop the case?

So doing something that has extremely low chance of success, but an extremely high chance of pissing off the judge if it fails? Sounds like a good idea!

Would you expect anything less of Mr. Oppositional Defiance Disorder.

 

[Balldo's Gate]

Then if he gets past the hurdle that (IMO) they shouldn't even hear this, they'd have to find that not only should they import the substantive and procedural law of another state, but that it overrides the findings of their own Supreme Court in throwing out a very similar statute.

There's another hurdle, which is even if they decide to import Colorado law, that doesn't necessarily mean that the case would be dismissed under it. The difference between now and when Randazza's motion to dismiss is that Nick has spent about half a year wedging his foot as deep in his mouth as he possibly could by doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on what he said.

The absolute most hilarious outcome would be a ruling that CO law applies but the lawsuit surviving anyway.

This is weird, imo, given their agreed-upon schedule. He was okay with the order back then, but isn’t now?

They were required to come together to try to create a discovery plan and in the background they were deciding if and how they wanted to appeal. If they appealed before conferring for the discovery plan they would have to have given up all of that time. Doesn't seem weird to me.

 

[AnOminous]

Is it common to try to apply statutes from other states to your own? That sounds wrong otherwise why bother having your own state laws?

No, but it's something that's done. It generally happens when more than one state has potential jurisdiction over the case, but it was filed in a particular one. Every state has laws to decide choice-of-law issues, which are when there's a choice between the laws of two separate states that could apply.

A fairly prominent example, argued by Harmeet Dhillon and her law firm, involved Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels) suing Donald Trump for defamation in the Southern District of New York. It was removed to federal court, ultimately ending up in the Central District of California.

The result was a California court used New York choice-of-law, because the case had been filed there, to decide that the Texas TCPA applied to a case being tried in California (because Clifford was a domiciliary of Texas), and to dismiss the case and award fees to Trump.

So in this case, a California court used the law of two different states to decide a case.

One major difference here is both Texas and California have strong anti-SLAPP laws that would likely have had the same result anyway. Colorado has an anti-SLAPP law, but Minnesota struck its own down as unconstitutional.

Choice-of-law rules are all over the map though. (Note this is different from the choice-of-law provisions in contracts where the parties agree to what law is to be used, which courts usually enforce.)

Here's a quote explaining the principle from a Minnesota law firm:

A Minneapolis, Minnesota business lawyer knows that in conducting a choice of law analysis, first a court must decide if a conflict exists between the states’ laws, second the court must decide if a particular state’s laws can be constitutionally applied, then, The third step requires application of a multifactored test, considers the: (1) predictability of result; (2) maintenance of interstate and international order; (3) simplification of the judicial task; (4) advancement of the forum’s governmental interest; and (5) application of the better rule of law.

It's an introductory paragraph to this case which goes into more detail, and yes, the analysis of this kind of thing is gnarly as hell, so possibly Fischer did get it wrong because I don't remember very in-depth analysis. I'm still not buying it, though.

https://thekuhnlawfirm.com/minnesota-choice-law-rules-require-consideration-factors/

Just as an extremely brief and inadequate analysis, I think we can agree there is a conflict of laws between the states. Colorado has a SLAPP statute, Minnesota threw their own out as unconstitutional. Then, though, we get to the next issue, which is whether Colorado's law can be constitutionally applied. I think it's similar enough to the one Minnesota threw out that no, it can't.

So we wouldn't even get to the intensely gnarly multifactor balancing test. IMO. Even assuming the appeals court hears it at all, which I don't think it will. If they do it will be because it does at least implicate a constitutional issue, and they might have to decide the choice-of-law issue just to decide not to hear it.

 

[AirdropShitposts]

There's also sometimes reason to look to another state to help clarify statutes in your own state, basically you're saying "other states have thought this interpretation is a good idea, ours hasn't been settled, so we should copy it", in this case though Minnesota's Supreme Court pretty explicitly ruled on this matter. Nick's recourse is the legislature, not asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to change its mind (especially this many years later) and definitely not asking lower courts to ignore the highest court.

Randazza will probably write up some fun bullshit in his custom font though.

 

[AnOminous]

Nick's recourse is the legislature, not asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to change its mind (especially this many years later) and definitely not asking lower courts to ignore the highest court.

I remember a guy who got told this by a court once or twice. . .

 

[Kosher Salt]

Minnesota's Supreme Court pretty explicitly ruled on this matter. Nick's recourse is the legislature, not asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to change its mind

Effectively what you're saying is that back when the Minnesota Supreme Court found Minnesota's anti-SLAPP law unconstitutional, Nick should have began petitioning the Minnesota state legislature to pass a modified anti-SLAPP law, with key differences to fix the parts that were found to make the previous law unconstitutional, all because years later, Nick might end up getting sued and want to have the case dismissed.

That's fine and all, but he's not psychic. Once he's already been sued, it's far too late to try to get the legislature to do anything, because even if it could act that quickly, the lawsuit's already been filed and a new law probably wouldn't apply to it retroactively.