Trump’s NYT Lawsuit Tossed for Now as ‘Inexcusably’ Long (3)

A US judge in Florida for now tossed out President Donald Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times days after it was filed, finding the president’s lawyers failed to follow court rules requiring “short, plain, direct” claims.

US District Judge Steven Merryday issued an order on Friday concluding that Trump’s lawsuit “unmistakably and inexcusably” violated the court’s rules by featuring “repetitive,” “superfluous” and “florid” allegations and details, but said that his lawyers could refile an edited version within the next month.

Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court in Tampa earlier this week against The New York Times Co. and Penguin Random House LLC, accusing the paper of serving as a “mouthpiece” for the Democrats, pitting himself against one of the world’s oldest and most prominent news organizations.

Read More: Trump Files $15 Billion Lawsuit Against New York Times

The 85-page complaint featured language and information that Merryday said went far beyond the limits of what the court’s rules allow. Even under a “generous and lenient” interpretation, the judge wrote, the lawsuit was “decidedly improper and impermissible.”

The judge criticized what he called “laudatory” statements included in the lawsuit about Trump, such as his “historic” election win and the “cultural magnitude” of his “singular brilliance.” The judge also called out Trump’s recitations of his business and media track records, as well as negative language used to describe the Times’ coverage, such as “new journalistic low.”

Even if all of the allegations in Trump’s lawsuit are true, the initial complaint wasn’t an appropriate place “for the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence, for the rehearsal of tendentious arguments, or for the protracted recitation and explanation of legal authority,” he wrote.

Read More: Trump NYT Libel Judge Crossed Biden on Vaccines, Cruise Ship Ban

Trump’s personal attorneys handling the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment shortly after the order was released on Friday afternoon.

A spokesperson for the New York Times wrote in a statement that “we welcome the judge’s quick ruling, which recognized that the complaint was a political document rather than a serious legal filing.”

Merryday gave Trump’s team another 28 days to present a new version of the lawsuit, this time limiting it to 40 pages.

Alleged Defamation

The suit, which was filed Monday, claims Trump’s reputation was harmed by the 2024 book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success and by three Times articles that were published in the runup to the 2024 election.

Trump claims the book and articles are part of a “decades-long pattern by the New York Times of intentional and malicious defamation” against him. The suit raises numerous disputes with the Times, including its “deranged” front-page endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, that are not included in his legal claims.

The case was one of Trump’s running battles with the press. In July, he sued Dow Jones & Co., News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch for libel, seeking $10 billion in damages after the Wall Street Journal published a story alleging that Trump once sent a suggestive birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. House Democrats later released the alleged birthday note as part of a trove of documents received by the House Oversight Committee.

Trump reached a settlement with Paramount Global in July over a lawsuit tied to CBS news network’s 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Harris. In December, ABC agreed to give $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation or museum to resolve a separate defamation claim.

The case is Trump v. New York Times Co., 25-cv-2487, US District Court, Middle District of Florida.

(Updates with NYT statement in paragraph eight. An earlier version corrected the date of the order in seventh paragraph.)

--With assistance from Bob Van Voris and Miles J. Herszenhorn.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Sara Forden

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