Judge strikes down Trump’s $15 billion suit against the New York Times
A federal judge in Tampa struck down President Donald Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, saying that the 85-page complaint was “decidedly improper and impermissible” under the rules governing civil proceedings in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, issued a scathing ruling on Friday, lambasting the president and his lawyers for the lawsuit.
“In this action, a prominent American citizen (perhaps the most prominent American citizen) alleges defamation by a prominent American newspaper publisher (perhaps the most prominent American newspaper publisher) and by several other corporate and natural persons,” he wrote. “Alleging only two simple counts of defamation, the complaint consumes eighty-five pages. Count I appears on page eighty, and Count II appears on page eighty-three.”
“We welcome the judge’s quick ruling, which recognized that the complaint was a political document rather than a serious legal filing,” a New York Times spokesperson wrote in a statement.
“President Trump will continue to hold the Fake News accountable through this powerhouse lawsuit against the New York Times, its reporters, and Penguin Random House, in accordance with the judge’s direction on logistics,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team wrote in a statement. The White House declined to comment.
In addition to the legal issues at hand, Merryday bemoaned the writing.
“The reader of the complaint must labor through allegations, such as ‘a new journalistic low for the hopelessly compromised and tarnished ‘Gray Lady.’ The reader must endure an allegation of ‘the desperate need to defame with a partisan spear rather than report with an authentic looking glass’ and an allegation that ‘the false narrative about ‘The Apprentice’ was just the tip of Defendants’ melting iceberg of falsehoods.’”
The judge said every lawyer should know that a complaint is not a “public forum for vituperation and invective” nor a “megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner.”
The judge said a new complaint may be filed within 28 days and must be under 40 pages long.