Mike Lindell wins appeal in lawsuit over $5 million election contest
The MyPillow CEO told news outlets this week he was pleased with the ruling.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell gestures as supporters of President Donald Trump gather outside Capital One Arena for a rally a day before he is scheduled to be inaugurated for a second term, in Washington on Jan. 19, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo
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A U.S. appeals court threw out a lower court order that required MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to pay $5 million to a man who said he debunked Lindell’s arguments about fraud during the 2020 general election, as part of a contest that was set up by the pillow magnate.
The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said in a ruling on Wednesday that an arbitration panel improperly interpreted the rules of a contest Lindell set up and oversaw. The contest challenged anyone to disprove his claims that President Donald Trump won the election.
It reversed a federal judge’s order that confirmed the arbitrator’s award to Robert Zeidman, a software developer who said he proved Lindell wrong.
Lindell created the challenge as part of an effort to establish that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden actually lost to Trump during the 2020 election, which Trump and Lindell said was marred by fraud.
As part of a 2021 “Cyber Symposium” Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he offered $5 million to anyone who could prove that “packet captures,” and other data he released there, were not valid data from the 2020 election.
Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he claimed proved the data wasn’t what Lindell claimed.
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Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million.
But appeals court Judges James Loken, Lavenski Smith, and L. Steven Grasz said in their Wednesday order that the arbitration panel improperly amended the contest’s contract terms, putting new obligations on Lindell concerning the data at issue.
“Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,” the appeals court said in its Wednesday order. “Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel’s reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law.”
The judges then remanded the case to the lower court with instructions to vacate the award to Zeidman.
Previously, U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim ruled in favor of Zeidman and wrote in his order that in certain cases, “arbitration awards are not entirely free from judicial review,” and that the arbitration panel “did not modify the contract or exceed its scope” by giving the award to him.
“Even though the Court may have reached a different outcome given an independent initial review of the information, the Court fails to identify evidence that the panel exceeded its authority. Under the Court’s narrow review, it will confirm the arbitration award,” the judge added.
Lindell and his attorneys later appealed the judgment to the Eighth Circuit.
In documents submitted to the appeals court in mid-2024, Zeidman’s attorneys argued that Lindell’s appeal of Tunheim’s order is meritless because “neither the record nor the law supports Lindell’s claim that the district court erred.”
“To the contrary, the record establishes the Panel acted within its authority, considered evidence, applied the law, and issued an award consistent with the parties’ agreement,” the attorneys added.
“A contrary result in this case would create unwarranted uncertainty about the finality of arbitrators’ decisions.”
In response, Lindell told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday, “All I want to do is secure our elections—period.”
“It’s a great day for our country,” Lindell also said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“This is a big win,“ he said, adding that the appeals court order could lead to widespread usage of ”paper ballots“ that are ”hand-counted” in elections.
The Epoch Times contacted Lindell’s attorneys for additional comment on Thursday.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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