Publishers Marketplace (subscription required) reports that Milo Yiannopoulos made his first appearance in court today in his lawsuit against Simon & Schuster for breach of contract after they cancelled his book deal.
As you may recall, last month, because of this lawsuit, the notes from the editor about just how unbelievably awful his manuscript was became public.
He hasn’t learned a thing. According to today’s report:
- He complained that the December mirth was caused by Simon & Schuster leaking against him in order to embarrass him...whereas in fact the annotated manuscript with editorial comments was posted to the court's public docket.
- He’s made sweeping discovery requests against Simon & Schuster for proprietary financial information and the judge denied them, on the grounds that what he is looking for has nothing to do with the “substantive merits of his case”. The Simon & Schuster lawyers pointed out to the judge that Milo has posted on his website that he was starting his own imprint and he was strategizing to take all of Simon & Schuster’s best authors, and that therefore this was obviously a fishing expedition.
- He’s representing himself.
I love that last item. I guess it is hard to find a lawyer in New York City who knows anything about contract law and the publishing industry.