An appeals court has upheld almost $187,000 in monetary sanctions against a lawyer duo that filed a lawsuit challenging President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win over former President Donald Trump.
What Happened: The unanimous ruling was made by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado on Tuesday, reported Reuters.
The court said that attorneys Gary Fielder and Ernest Walker must pay the legal fee of voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems Inc and Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) along with other defendants such as state officials in Michigan and Pennsylvania and the Center for Tech and Civic Life, according to the report.
“An attorney is expected to exercise judgment, and must regularly re-evaluate the merits of claims and avoid prolonging meritless claims,” said Chief Judge of the 10th Circuit, Jerome Holmes, reported Reuters.
Why It Matters: The court’s order means that Dominion Voting would receive nearly $62,000 while Meta would get $50,000, noted Reuters.
The three-judge panel reportedly called the lawsuit’s underlying arguments “utterly baseless.”
Fielder said in a statement that the lawyers never thought that their “actions were unethical or frivolous." He said the affirmation of sanctions would have a “chilling effect on other lawyers” in the future, according to the report.
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