Error with using `max_items` and `sortby` parameters with the LandsatLook endpoint

[tonianr]

When submitting a search to the Landsat STAC API with PySTAC setting both max_items and sortby parameters, the returned results are repeated to match the max_items value, e.g., this search setup has only 4 scenes that satisfy it, but 10 are returned, which is the set max_items value in the search :

landsat_stac = Client.open('https://landsatlook.usgs.gov/stac-server')
query_returns = landsat_stac.search(
    collections=['landsat-c2ard-sr'],
    datetime=f"2023-11-03/2023-11-03",
    max_items=10,
    intersects=river_linestring,
    sortby=[
        {'field': 'properties.landsat:grid_vertical', 'direction': 'asc'}, 
        {'field': 'properties.landsat:grid_horizontal', 'direction': 'asc'}
    ]
).item_collection_as_dict()['features']

Of the 10 returned, the metadata dictionary for 2 scenes is repeated 3 times, while the other 2 are repeated 2 times. When the line of code is run without the max_items flag, the "pulling" of metadata from the Landsat STAC continues, seemingly with no end.

Is there a potential fix to this, or is this snippet incorrectly formatted?

Thank you, Toni