MyPillow's Mike Lindell wins appeal over 2020 election claim contest
July 23 (UPI) -- MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell got a break Wednesday in one of the multiple lawsuits against the noted conspiracy theorist and ardent supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Missouri and Minnesota-based 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which covers seven states, reversed a lower court decision in a 12-page ruling. It said a previous panel of deciders overstepped by forcing Lindell to pay a man who won Lindell's contest related to his discredited conspiracies surrounding the 2020 election.
The three-judge panel -- two appointed by former President George H.W. Bush and one by Trump -- handed down a unanimous decision by ruling that a past panel of arbiters exceeded power by altering already clear contractual terms.
"Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge James Loken, a Bush-appointee.
Lindell claimed to be in possession of digital files that, he said, proved China interfered in the 2020 election.
He then held in 2021 the "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge" in South Dakota, in which he vowed to award $5 million to any person who could show that his Internet data was not valid election data.
Robert Zeidman, a contestant and software developer, produced a 15-page report that explained Lindell's "data" was not related to the election. The challenge judges ruled that he did not meet the requirements for the $5 million award.
Zeidman in April 2023 won a filed arbitration lawsuit in the case.
In his opinion, Loken stated that the three judges concluded the panel had "effectively amended the unambiguous Challenge contract when it used extrinsic evidence to require that the data provided was packet capture data, thereby violating established principles of Minnesota contract law and our arbitration precedents."
On Wednesday, Zeidman's attorney Brian Glasser said people can judge for themselves if the 8th Circuit's ruling was "more persuasive, or rings in truth louder, than the unanimous contrary decision of three arbitrators who heard all the evidence, including one appointed by Mr. Lindell," he told The Hill.
It comes weeks just weeks after a federal jury required Lindell to pay more than $2 million in a separate lawsuit to an ex-employee of Dominion Voting Systems in a two-week defamation trial.
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