By Mike Scarcella
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by two lawyers contesting a $187,000 financial sanction imposed on them by a judge who found they made recklessness and frivolous claims in litigation they brought seeking to overturn former President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss as fraudulent.
The justices turned away the appeal by Ernest Walker and Gary Fielder, who had filed a lawsuit in Colorado accusing voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, Meta's Facebook and the Center for Tech and Civic Life nonprofit organization of working to steal the election from Trump. The judge who dismissed the suit ordered Walker and Fielder to pay the legal fees of the parties they sued.
The justices announced their action on the first day of their new nine-month term.
Trump's campaign and allies filed a raft of failed lawsuits in numerous states seeking to undo the Republican businessman-turned-politician's loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The suits were based on Trump's false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud. Walker and Fielder in their lawsuit represented eight voters from five states.
U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter in August 2021 imposed the sanctions on Walker and Fielder over the suit that was filed in federal court in December 2020, the month after the election.
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