Why a federal judge quickly tossed Trump's 'florid and enervating' suit against the New York Times
Lawyers for President Donald Trump will have to trim more than half the pages from their $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times after a federal judge quickly tossed the suit for violating a procedural rule requiring a short and plain statement of the facts.
The 85-page suit “is decidedly improper and impermissible” even under the most generous application of Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, said U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday of the Middle District of Florida. He tossed the suit Sept. 19, four days after it was filed.
“As every lawyer knows (or is presumed to know), a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective—not a protected platform to rage against an adversary,” Merryday wrote. “A complaint is not 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 defendants in Trump’s suit are the New York Times, four of its reporters and the publisher of a book by two of the journalists, the New York Times reports. The alleged false statements are listed at page 45 of the complaint, and the two defamation counts are listed at pages 80 and 83.
The suit alleges that the book and the New York Times articles “recklessly disregard the truth that the president’s fortune was developed through business genius, creativity, perseverance, talent, authenticity and other unique traits. Not, as the book and the articles falsely claim, by luck, any semblance of wrongdoing, ‘twisting the rules’ or reliance on government programs.”
The suit begins with a statement that Trump won the 2024 election “in historic fashion,” securing “the greatest personal and political achievement in American history.” In contrast to the “halcyon days” when the New York Times editors published “all the news that’s fit to print,” the suit says, the newspaper has become “a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democrat Party.”
But now, the suit says, the New York Times has reached “a new journalistic low.” To try to tear down Trump’s “worldwide reputation for success,” the suit says, the defendants confronted Trump’s “decades of magnificent real estate achievements” and his “remarkable performance” as the star of the reality TV show The Apprentice, which “represented the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the zeitgeist of our time.”
Merryday said the complaint continues with allegations in defense of Trump’s acquisition of wealth, a “protracted list” of properties that he owned and developed, a long account of the history of The Apprentice, an “extensive list” of Trump’s media appearances, and a “detailed account” of other legal actions involving Trump.
There is “much more, persistently alleged in abundant, florid and enervating detail,” Merryday said.
Merryday, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, said the revised suit cannot be longer than 40 pages.
New York magazine reports that Merryday “is decidedly not one of those ‘radical left judges’ the White House loves to bash.” He is best known for blocking a ban on cruise-ship operations during the COVID-19 pandemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the magazine says.
The attorneys who signed the suit are Alejandro Brito of the Brito law firm in Coral Gables, Florida; Edward Andrew Paltzik of Taylor Dykema in Houston; and Daniel Zachary Epstein of Epstein & Co. in Boca Raton, Florida.
Publications with coverage of Merryday’s order include Law.com, the Volokh Conspiracy and the New York Times.
See also:
Trump files defamation and libel lawsuit against New York Times
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