North Dakota
A Walsh County man sued a North Dakota senator who blocked him on Facebook. Now he has to pay her $4,975.
BISMARCK — A Walsh County man claimed a North Dakota senator violated his First Amendment rights when she blocked him on Facebook. Now, he wants the North Dakota Supreme Court to reject an unfavorable ruling that would force him to pay nearly $5,000 in court fees to the lawmaker.
Mitchell Sanderson, of Park River, North Dakota, argued Monday, Sept. 9, that he shouldn’t have to pay the attorney and court fees to Sen. Janne Myrdal, R-Edinburg. He asked the Supreme Court to roll back Walsh County Judge Kari Agotness’ Jan. 30 ruling, which said Sanderson must pay Myrdal $4,975.
He said Agotness abused her power and shouldn’t have ruled on the case. He also made criminal allegations against Myrdal and Agotness, which have not been brought in a criminal court.
“The crimes and abuses that took place are why we are here today and why I appealed this,” Sanderson said. “All government branches need to be held accountable to the law or we will have more criminal behavior in this country as we are seeing happen to President (Donald) Trump.”
Sanderson initially sued Myrdal in mid-2023 because she blocked him from seeing her Facebook pages. One of the pages is titled “Myrdal ND Senate” and has “all the trappings of a government page,” Sanderson argued.
He claimed that, as a public figure, Myrdal can’t block people on social media because “she does not like them or that they have different views of how the government is to operate.”
“This is a violation of the First Amendment!” Sanderson wrote in his initial lawsuit. “This is censorship by a government public figure which is Illegal and Unconstitutional!”
He asked for $200,000 in damages, as well as the ability to see and post on Myrdal’s Facebook page.
Myrdal has served in the North Dakota Senate since 2017. She declined to comment on this story.
Agotness ruled in December that Myrdal runs her Facebook page without the help of government resources. The page in question was created before she was elected, and Myrdal uses it to campaign for re-election, the judge wrote in her opinion. Myrdal acted as a private citizen, not a government official on behalf of the state, Agotness said.
Jeremy Turley / Forum News Service
“If Myrdal’s conduct was purely private, then the First Amendment does not apply because there is not a government abridgment of speech,” Agotness ruled.
Sanderson also sued Agotness, claiming she was biased against him. He demanded $200 million in damages from Agotness and that “the county and state investigate her for criminal actions,” according to the lawsuit that was dismissed by Grand Forks District Judge Jay Knudson.
Agotness also declined to comment for this story.
In his Supreme Court briefing, Sanderson claimed Agotness improperly denied multiple motions he made in the Myrdal case. That included a motion for default judgment in his favor since Myrdal didn’t respond within 21 days of him serving the senator a summons on May 2, 2023.
A court may rule in favor of a person who files a lawsuit if a defendant doesn’t answer within 21 days, Agotness ruled. In a June 3, 2023, email to Walsh County District Court, Myrdal said she hadn’t seen the summons in the case until May 30, 2023.
Myrdal answered the lawsuit four days before Sanderson asked for a default judgment, the judge wrote.
“North Dakota has a strong preference for deciding cases on their merits rather than by default judgment,” Agotness wrote July 10 in court filings that denied the motion for default judgment.
Sanderson claimed Monday the case shouldn’t have moved forward because he didn’t properly serve a summons to Myrdal.
“This is an obvious error by the court which requires reversal,” Sanderson said.
When pressed by North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Daniel Crothers that judges have discretion in declaring default justice or moving forward with a case, Sanderson said the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court rulings supersede North Dakota law.
“It’s not the U.S. Supreme Court’s rule. It’s our rule,” Crothers said. “This isn’t a federal case. It’s a state case.”
“You’re bound by the Constitution, sir,” Sanderson said.
The appeal is moot, said Howard Swanson, who represented Myrdal in the lawsuit and at the Supreme Court hearing on Monday. Sanderson is no longer pursuing his First Amendment claims, Swanson said.
“Mr. Sanderson’s rights were not violated by Mrs. Myrdal’s blocking, on her personal Facebook page, his adverse comments,” Swanson said.
In Lindke v. Freed, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this spring that public officials can sometimes block social media followers. A person must have authority to speak on the government’s behalf and act in an official capacity in order to violate a person’s First Amendment rights by blocking them on social media, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.
The improper service of documents didn’t prejudice anyone, Swanson said. Improper service to Myrdal was waived because she continued with the case and defended against what Swanson called “absurd” motions filed by Sanderson.
“There was no denial of justice to anyone,” Swanson said. “It allowed the matter to pursue in the normal course of litigation.”
Sanderson called Swanson’s argument “verbal theatrics with the law.” Myrdal had her state-issued email on the page, Sanderson noted.
“Everything she did on it was pretty much political activity,” he said.
In an interview with The Forum, Sanderson said he can’t pursue the First Amendment claims anymore. He said he would go as far as he needs to go with his case.
“If the judges do not rule in favor of the service and default judgment, and they hold up the attorney fees, I will sue any one of the judges that violate their Constitutional oath,” he told The Forum. “Any judge that dissents against me will get sued in federal court.”
Sanderson also accused Myrdal of forgery and evidence tampering, as well as Agotness of corruption and perjury. North Dakota Justice Lisa McEvers suggested those allegations should be handled by a criminal court, not in a civil case.
Sanderson said the Walsh County State’s Attorney’s Office will “defend the state at all costs.” He said he has brought his evidence to the FBI but claimed the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden wouldn’t address the allegations.
“We have to wait for President Trump to get in,” he said. “This is not stopping her today, folks.”
He said more lawsuits are coming from him, as well as criminal charges.
“Trump is coming,” he said. “His DOJ is coming.”
Republicans have criticized a jury verdict that found Trump guilty in a hush-money case earlier this year. He also faces several federal indictments, including in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, D.C., where masses tried to overturn the 2020 election results that said he lost to Biden.
Sanderson filed a lawsuit against the North Dakota Republican Party after it kicked him out in 2022. He said he tried to run against Myrdal at the District 19 nominating meeting.
He and the NDGOP agreed to dismiss the case.
FARGO — Slowly, the North Dakota Horse Park in Fargo is growing its live horse racing meet and for the first time in nearly a decade, the organization that runs the track is not scrambling to make the tax payment that once loomed over it.
The Fargo track is operated by Horse Race North Dakota, a nonprofit organization that contributed when the track was built in 2003.
At a meeting of Horse Race North Dakota on Friday, Dec. 20. Cindy Slaughter, accountant and co-owner of TaxLady, which contracts with Horse Race North Dakota, said the track’s overall income is up about $93,000 from this time last year.
A fourth weekend of racing cost the track about $148,000 this year. However, that cost can be offset in the future by factors such as attendance and the amount bet on the races.
“There’s a couple of things we could do differently this year to reduce that amount,” North Dakota Horse Park General Manager Hugh Alan Drexler said.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
While Drexler and HRND will look to decrease costs, they will not try to do that at the expense of the horsemen, as they hope to keep purses for each race flat or increase them in 2025.
“I don’t want to cut the purses at all, that would be the last thing we would cut,” HRND President Jay Aslop said.
“That is what our goal is, to promote racing and to increase race dates,” Drexler said. “The day the finances don’t look the same, that is when we need to make a change.”
Live racing receives additional funds from the North Dakota Racing Commission. The commission will meet in February to determine the amount of funds that will be granted to the Fargo track as well as Chippewa Downs, the second horse racing track in North Dakota near Belcourt.
Overcoming financial struggles
Heavy special assessments loomed over the North Dakota Horse Park for several years after it opened.
In 2003, the city of Fargo spent $1.5 million to extend sewer, water and other infrastructure to the track. The city planned to recoup the costs with special assessments, a kind of property tax assessed to benefiting properties, but the city agreed to suspend the assessments for five years in hopes that the race track would stimulate the development of commercial and residential properties. This would spread the assessments over more property owners and create a smaller bill for the track, which in 2015 was about $1.9 million.
The track is now in repayment of its taxes, making annual payments to the city of Fargo, and accountants are confident a fourth weekend of racing in 2025 will not adversely affect the track.
“I don’t have any concerns about running a fourth weekend this year,” Slaughter said.
Horse racing will be held at the Fargo track in 2025 over four weekends, likely July 12 through Aug. 3, track officials said.
“(It will be) some combination of either Friday, Saturday or Saturday, Sunday depending on what other events are going on in the area,” said Drexler.
In 2024, attendance at the Fargo track was up overall with about 8,358 in attendance over the eight race days, up from about 8,127, in 2023.
The Fargo track held horse races on Saturday and Sunday afternoons for four consecutive weekends, starting Saturday, July 13. The weekend of July 27-28, races were held in the evening so as to not compete with the Fargo AirSho. The horse park competed for attendance each weekend as the Fargo Street Fair, Red River Valley Fair and the Renaissance Fair overlapped the schedule. The horse park’s closing weekend coincided with WeFest.
The track hosted only three weekends of racing in 2022 and 2023, as it was constricted to operating expenses and the amount of money granted for a live season by the North Dakota Racing Commission. The Fargo track hosted a four-week meet in 2021 but held only two weekends in 2020.
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – Bismarck High Wrestlers win a lot of titles.
“We’re striving for a state championship, that’s where the bar is set,” said Bismarck High Wrestling head coach Mark Lardy.
Three of said titles belong to the top-ranked 133-pound wrestler in North Dakota, Ben DeForest.
Now, Ben’s going for number four.
“It would mean everything to me,” said Ben DeForest. “There have been some great wrestlers from BHS that have been four-timers it would just mean a lot for me to add my name to that list.”
”He led a lot by example in the past,” said Lardy. “Now he leads not only by example but his voice in the room is heard.“
Even when his BHS days are over, Ben has another chapter to write in his story: He’s committed to Wrestle at UMary.
“We pride ourselves on trying to keep and retain as many local North Dakota kids here at U-Mary and we’re just very thankful that Ben chose to come here and wrestle for us as well,” said U-Mary Wrestling head coach Adam Aho.
The state champ has a bigger goal in mind.
“His goal is way beyond what our room is going to give him. This is just a stepping stone,” said Lardy.
Ben wants a national championship.
“We need every guy to have that type of mentality,” said Aho. “Without it, we will never be relevant on the national scene.”
”Once you get your hand raised you realize, all those morning practices you didn’t want to go to and all those lifts that you were like, uh I don’t know, it’s worth it. It’s worth it,” said DeForest.
Copyright 2024 KFYR. All rights reserved.
My Heartfelt Christmas Wish To You North Dakota.
Not a “catchy-clicky” title and I doubt many of my listeners or readers will probably even read this article.
However, I wanted to share something with you that is on my heart. This is so not me, as I’m more the guy who writes about “North Dakota’s 10 most quirky this and that”.
It’s not that I’m not a sensitive guy, because when I was growing up, I was probably too sensitive. I would avoid sad movies, songs, or anything that would spark too much of an emotion.
Yes, you could say my heart has become a bit jaded and cold over the years. It’s not something I’m proud of but more of a defense mechanism.
2024 has probably been one of the most challenging years for my family.
From losing loved ones to family issues to health issues to very challenging financial times, it’s been one of those years where you just can’t catch a break. I’m sure many of you can relate.
As we were attending a Christmas Eve candlelight service last night a young child caught my eye.
She was a cute little toddler who was starting to act up. Something I remember oh so well at church with my little now 20-year-old son.
As her father took her outside the sanctuary to attend to her, I couldn’t help but notice this child’s extremely unfair situation. She had a disability at a year or so old, that none of us could ever imagine. It broke my heart.
This poor child and her family no doubt have a long road ahead of them. As we lit our candles later in the service, I caught the wonder in her eyes, and it couldn’t help but melt my cold heart at the time.
She was perfect and I found myself saying a prayer for this little blonde girl with curly locks and her family.
Her situation also reminded me that I should be thankful for what I have and not what I don’t this Christmas. This is my Christmas wish for you North Dakota, that you will realize the same thing.
Be thankful for who you have around the tree today, not what’s under it.
Merry Christmas to all my listeners and readers. I hope at least a few of you get to read this and it will touch you the same way this little girl touched me on Christmas Eve.
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