A United States federal judge has dismissed former President Donald Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, ruling that the case was improperly filed and filled with irrelevant material.
US District Judge, Steven Merryday, in a decision issued Friday, said Trump’s 85-page complaint against the newspaper, four of its reporters, and publisher Penguin Random House violated federal civil procedure rules by failing to provide a clear and concise argument.
Instead of presenting a straightforward legal claim, Merryday said the lawsuit was “decidedly improper and impermissible,” noting it was weighed down with political rhetoric, attacks on critics.
Reuters reports that he faulted the Republican president for instead packing the 85-page complaint with unnecessary attacks against critics, statements lauding his successes and “singular brilliance,” and even a defence of his late father Fred Trump.
According to the Tampa, Florida-based judge, “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective — not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. “A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally.”
Merryday, who was appointed by former Republican President George H.W. Bush, granted Trump 28 days to submit an amended complaint, limited to 40 pages and presented “in a professional and dignified manner.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team vows to comply with Judge’s orders.
A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump’s legal team said 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.”
However, a Times spokesperson said: “We welcome the judge’s quick ruling, which recognized that the complaint was a political document rather than a serious legal filing.”
Penguin Random House welcomed the dismissal, pointing to the judge’s characterization of the lawsuit as “improper and impermissible.”
Trump has increasingly relied on the courts in his efforts to curb reporting and commentary he views as unfair.
The lawsuit targeted three articles and a book authored by two Times reporters, with Trump alleging that the defendants defamed him ahead of the 2024 presidential election in an attempt to damage his campaign and undermine his image as a successful businessman.
Meanwhile, Friday’s ruling marked a rare rebuke by a federal judge to a sitting president over proper judicial conduct.
In a four-page order, Judge Merryday stated that plaintiffs like Trump are supposed to “fairly, precisely, directly, soberly, and economically” tell defendants in complaints why they are being sued.
However, Trump’s complaint said the defendants “baselessly hate President Trump in a deranged way,” and that their actions “represent a new journalistic low for the hopelessly compromised and tarnished ‘Gray Lady,'” a nickname for the Times.
It also contended that the Times itself was “deranged” for endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president.
“Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client,” Merryday wrote, “the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude.”
One of Trump’s attorneys is also handling his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal, stemming from an article about a 2003 birthday greeting sent to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Meanwhile, two of his other lawyers secured a $16 million settlement in July with Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris.