A federal judge has rejected Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad’s attempt to move a state invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against him by two Lakeland Times employees into federal court, ruling that the dispute is fundamentally a state-law tort case rather than a federal campaign-finance dispute.
In a May 20 decision, U.S. District judge William Conley granted a motion by Lakeland Times publisher Gregg Walker and Times’ general manager Heather Holmes — who filed the lawsuit against Bangstad — to remand the case to Oneida County circuit court.
A piece in the May 29, 2026 issue of The Lakeland Times outlined the ruling. According to the story:
Bangstad and the Minocqua Brewing Company (MBC) Super PAC had argued that the lawsuit necessarily involved federal election law under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). However, Conley dismissed that assertion and kept Walker’s and Holmes’s underlying allegations intact.Walker and Holmes filed the lawsuit in Oneida County circuit court, alleging that Bangstad and MBC unlawfully used their images and likenesses in their weekly newsletters and social media posts without their consent in violation of Wisconsin privacy law.
The complaint also asserted an alter ego theory, alleging that Bangstad, MBC, and the MBC Super PAC operated in an intertwined financial and operational fashion. According to the original lawsuit, Walker and Holmes alleged that Bangstad used the PAC as a personal and business funding vehicle.
“Since 2021, the MBC Super PAC has paid Bangstad, entities Bangstad controls, friends of Bangstad, Minocqua Brewing, and law firms a total of $1,124,440.19, which represents a staggering 58.3 percent of all expenditures by the MBC Super PAC since its inception,” the lawsuit states. “Based on the expenditure totals, the primary purpose of the MBC Super PAC is to provide a source of income for Bangstad and cover debts he owes to various law firms.”
The lawsuit followed an earlier defamation case in which a jury unanimously found Bangstad liable for defaming Walker and awarded $750,000 in damages, believed to be the largest defamation verdict in Wisconsin history. Ultimately, a settlement was negotiated, with Bangstad paying Walker $50,000 and his insurance companies paying $530,000.
However, unanswered questions raised in that lawsuit about Bangstad’s PAC activities worked their way into this lawsuit, as did statements Bangstad made during the defamation case about his use of his dispute with Walker for business purposes. In their original complaint, Walker and Holmes asserted both an invasion of privacy under Wisconsin law and a declaration that the MBC Super PAC functioned as the alter ego of Bangstad and MBC.
Bangstad removed the case to federal court, arguing that because the alter-ego allegations involved PAC expenditures and campaign-finance activity, the case necessarily implicated FECA and thus belonged under federal jurisdiction. Conley said that argument was flawed.
In Wisconsin, Conley wrote, an alter ego finding of liability requires proof of three elements: “control, not mere majority or complete stock control, but complete domination, not only of finances but of policy and business practice in respect to the transaction attacked so that the corporate entity as to this transaction had at the time no separate mind, will or existence of its own; such control must have been used by the defendant to commit fraud or wrong, to perpetrate the violation of a statutory or other positive legal duty, or dishonest and unjust act in contravention of plaintiff’s legal rights; and the aforesaid control and breach of duty must proximately cause the injury or unjust loss complained of.”
Conley said that standard did not require Walker and Holmes to prove federal statutory violations.
In other words, Walker’s and Holmes’s claims remain active, and all substantive litigation now resumes in state court. Walker and Holmes had also sought attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in fighting the removal in federal court. However, Conley denied that request.
RELATED:
Bangstad found guilty in 2025 disorderly conduct incident involving Lakeland Times publisher
6 charged with disorderly conduct after ‘flipping off’ Lakeland Times publisher
Lakeland Times publisher rips judge, calls for prosecution in records case
