The 2021 MLB All-Star Game will be played as planned at Denver’s Coors Field after a U.S. federal judge predictably slapped down a lawsuit from a conservative business group requesting MLB move the game back to Atlanta.
The lawsuit, filed by the right-wing Dallas-based Job Creators Network against MLB, the MLBPA and other associated entities in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, also seeks $100 million in damages and $1 billion in punitive damages. The move came after the Republican legislature and governor placed new restrictions on voting rights in the battleground state–part of a movement by several local and national corporations (Delta, Coca-Cola) in decrying the new legislation. The decision rapidly turned into a culture war, with Gov. Brian Kemp warning that cancel culture threatens the freedoms of all Georgians, and many corporate leaders in Georgia hailing the decision. The politics are complex, to be sure.
But the reception in federal court was not. U.S. District Court Judge Valerie E. Caproni took a relatively short amount of time to question attorneys on both sides before denying the request. Representing Job Creators Network: Howard Kleinhendler, best known as part of the “Kraken” legal team assembled by Lin Wood and Sidney Powell to contest 2020 presidential results in various states, including Georgia and Arizona. As we noted in our original story, it’s hard to imagine how the Job Creators Network had any standing to bring the lawsuit, and sure enough the cornerstone of Caproni’s ruling was that Job Creators Network had no standing to bring the lawsuit. From AP:
Before ruling, Caproni verbally sparred for over an hour with attorney Howard Kleinhendler, making it clear that she thought there were no grounds for the lawsuit’s claims and that his organization did not have standing to sue. After taking a brief break, Caproni made those findings from the bench.
The lawsuit had sought $100 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages. The lawyer said he represented the Washington-based Job Creators Network, described in the lawsuit as a nonpartisan organization supporting over 30 million businesses nationwide, including over 10,000 Georgia businesses.
He said his client supports the new Georgia election law.
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