The Tesla automobile factory in Fremont, California, closed since March, filed a lawsuit to reopen. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

Tesla Inc. is leaning on a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan team, led by a lawyer who helped founder Elon Musk beat defamation claims at trial last year, in the company's bid to seek a court order allowing it to reopen its Fremont, California, production plant.

Tesla sued Alameda County Saturday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming that county officials' insistence that the plant remain closed to stem the spread of COVID-19 runs counter to state and local determinations that the company provides critical infrastructure, which the company contends should allow the plant to reopen.

Quinn Emanuel partner Alex Spiro. Courtesy photo)

"Alameda County has not only created a legal quagmire by wrongly declaring that its own orders trump the state level orders, it has threatened jail time and significant fines for businesses and individuals that do not comply, even where they are clearly authorized by the state order to continue critical infrastructure activities," wrote a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan team including New York partner Alex Spiro, Derek Shaffer in Washington, D.C., and Kyle Batter in Redwood Shores, California.

"To be clear, Alameda County is not using the 'existing authority of local health officers' to supplement a baseline set by the state, issuing policies 'more restrictive than' or 'in addition to' that baseline, as referenced in a May 4, 2020 Order. The county is making rules that directly contradict and undermine the policy announced by the governor in his orders," the Quinn lawyers continued.

Musk, Tesla's founder and CEO, took to Twitter Saturday to announce the lawsuit, saying "the unelected & ignorant 'interim health officer' of Alameda is acting contrary to the governor, the president, our constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!"

This is not the first time a Quinn Emanuel team has kicked into gear in the wake of Musk's Twitter activity. A team lead by Quinn's Spiro convinced a federal jury late last year to side with the mogul in a defamation lawsuit brought by British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth. After less than 30 minutes of deliberations in December, Los Angeles jurors found Musk did not defame Unsworth, whom the CEO referred to as a "pedo guy" on Twitter.

The dispute between Unsworth and Musk that led to the defamation suit broke out in the wake of the 2018 rescue of a Thai youth soccer team from a flooded cave in which both participated. Unsworth, in a media interview, called a submersible tube Musk designed for the rescue effort a "PR stunt" and said Musk "can stick his submarine where it hurts."

Musk responded in a since-deleted Twitter message that he and his team never saw "this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus)" while working at the caves. "Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it," Musk added. The defamation lawsuit followed.

As of Sunday morning, the lawsuit against Alameda County, which brings claims the county's actions violate the 14th Amendment and are preempted by the state's determinations, had not been assigned to a federal judge.

Read the complaint:

Read more:

How This Quinn Emanuel Team Beat the $190M Defamation Suit Against Elon Musk

Jury Sides With Elon Musk in 'Pedo Guy' Defamation Suit