Overlawyered » Donald Trump http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Donald Trump, bully-ionaire http://overlawyered.com/2011/09/donald-trump-bully-ionaire/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/09/donald-trump-bully-ionaire/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:33:29 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24491 An appeals court has upheld the dismissal of Donald Trump’s long-running defamation suit against author Timothy O’Brien, whose 2005 book, citing anonymous sources, had “reported the real estate maven/TV personality’s net worth was only a fraction of public claims.” [WSJ Deal Journal; earlier here]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/09/donald-trump-bully-ionaire/feed/ 0 May 12 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/may-12-roundup-4/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/may-12-roundup-4/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 12:18:14 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22956
  • Alabama state senate bans knowingly giving illegal immigrant ride in your car [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
  • Cato U., dynamite summer seminar from my institute, being held this year in Annapolis Jul. 24-29;
  • Calif.: “64% of Prop 65 settlements go to attorneys’ fees” [CJAC, earlier]
  • Mississippi jury votes $322 million to individual asbestos claimant [Fair Warning, Mass Tort Prof]
  • “Emails: Attorney nixed S.C. train injury fund” [AP/The State]
  • Trump files $100 million counterclaim against customer who sued his “Trump University” [Atlantic Wire, earlier] More: Lowering the Bar.
  • Two, three, a trend? Another trial-lawyer movie, this time starring Mark Lanier [WSJ Law Blog]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/may-12-roundup-4/feed/ 1     Trump’s litigiousness, cont’d http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/trumps-litigiousness-contd/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/trumps-litigiousness-contd/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 19:47:55 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22883 It’s practically a meme: last week I pointed out at Cato at Liberty that the real estate tycoon liked to use lawyers to push others around, and now Peter Stone of the Center for Public Integrity quotes me in the course of an article documenting Trump’s very frequent resort to litigation in his business and public affairs.

    “If he’s taken seriously as a candidate it’s going to be appropriate to look at his record of litigation,” conservative legal scholar Walter Olson of the Cato Institute told iWatch News . He said a big question will be “how consistent is [Trump’s record] with the Republican idea that litigation should be a last resort and not a weapon for tactical advantage.”

    Atlantic Wire and Ben Smith at Politico discuss.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/trumps-litigiousness-contd/feed/ 2     Donald Trump, litigation bully http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/donald-trump-litigation-bully/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/donald-trump-litigation-bully/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:35:39 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22776 At Cato at Liberty, I recall a couple of the tycoon’s ventures into the use of defamation litigation to intimidate critics — Reason #1,001 for thoughtful voters to stay well away from him.

    P.S. And here’s Radley Balko with Reason #1,002.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/donald-trump-litigation-bully/feed/ 0     Judge tosses Donald Trump’s bid to silence critical author http://overlawyered.com/2009/07/judge-tosses-donald-trumps-bid-to-silence-critical-author/ http://overlawyered.com/2009/07/judge-tosses-donald-trumps-bid-to-silence-critical-author/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:43:45 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=12348 Wealthy and aggressive individuals wielding defamation lawsuits never seldom sometimes, but apparently not in this case, prosper in efforts to silence their critics. [NY Post, Bloomberg, WSJ Law Blog] Trump vows an appeal against New York Times-affiliated author Timothy O’Brien — not to run up anyone’s legal costs further, you understand, but from a disinterested sense of justice. Earlier coverage here, here, here, and here. More: American Lawyer.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2009/07/judge-tosses-donald-trumps-bid-to-silence-critical-author/feed/ 2     “So, Probably I’ll Sue Her, Because It Would Be Fun” http://overlawyered.com/2006/12/so-probably-ill-sue-her-because-it-would-be-fun/ http://overlawyered.com/2006/12/so-probably-ill-sue-her-because-it-would-be-fun/#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:03:10 +0000 George M. Wallace http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/index.php/2006/12/so-probably-ill-sue-her-because-it-would-be-fun/ In many if not most cases, lawsuits that are held up to scorn on this site are filed by people who, in their heart of hearts and however misguidedly, believe in the justice of their cause.   Those people can and should be criticized when their cause is misguided, or when it camouflages some other agenda, or when their only real impact is the introduction of unjustified costs, frictions, and obstacles in to the path of valuable and legitimate economic or creative activity (not to mention the unjustified enrichment of a small class of my fellow attorneys). 

    Worse than these, though, in many ways, are wealthy and/or powerful egotists who use the legal system on a whim, as their personal payback mechanism or as a means of venting their pettiest grievances.   At the risk of fatally lowering the tone of Overlawyered and of prematurely ending my tenure as a guestblogger, I note the latest example, a tiff between two deeply unpleasant but inescapable self-anointed celebrities: Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump (MSNBC, "Trump to Rosie O’Donnell: You’re sued!", Dec. 21).

    Earlier this afternoon Trump announced he is filing suit against the TV talk show host. ‘She says things that come to her mouth, she’s not smart, she’s crude, she’s ignorant and to be honest I look forward to suing Rosie,’ he told our cameras. ‘I’m gonna sue her and I look forward to it.  She’s really very dangerous for the show.’

    Trump declined to elaborate on the details of his proposed legal filings, but added O’Donnell will understand his reasoning.  ‘Rosie will find out what we’re suing her for.  She knows what we’re suing her for,’ he said adding the lawsuit is already in the works.  ‘It’s something I look very forward to,’ he added.

    If ever there was a case for "loser pays," this is it.   Trouble is, with relentlessly meaningless suits like this one gumming up the works, we’re all the losers.

    Of Related Interest: The scurrilous Los Angeles gossip site, Defamer, has the Trump video from which I have drawn the post title (Dec. 20).   Not that I would recommend watching it, of course.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2006/12/so-probably-ill-sue-her-because-it-would-be-fun/feed/ 8     ATLA’s attack on reform supporters http://overlawyered.com/2006/07/atlas-attack-on-reform-supporters/ http://overlawyered.com/2006/07/atlas-attack-on-reform-supporters/#comments Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:27:12 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=3725 Evan Schaeffer was very excited by the fact that ATLA made its Trial magazine attack on reform freely available on line, so I clicked over to see what the fuss was. The first story I looked at was Justinian Lane’s “Corporate wolves in victims’ clothing,” which featured, among various baseless assertions and screeds about high executive salaries, the following strawman:

    And the next time someone brings up Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case, ask why a $2 million lawsuit over third-degree burns to a woman’s genitals is frivolous, but a $5 billion lawsuit over Donald Trump’s ego isn’t.

    Fascinating. What fictional reformer supports Donald Trump’s lawsuit? Certainly not the main author of this site, who has repeatedly scoffed at it. Where’s the hypocrisy? (More on Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case, which was frivolous, but is hardly the only reason for supporting reform.) Needless to say, I’m not impressed. Lane’s claim that proposed reforms wouldn’t affect Trump’s case is absolutely false; reforms such as anti-SLAPP laws, loser-pays, procedural streamlining, and limiting forum-shopping would all cabin the ability of a Trump to attempt to use litigation to intimidate critics.

    Lane asks why reformers argue that “the king’s-ransom salaries ‘earned’ by corporate executives aren’t passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, but that the costs of the tort system are.” There’s a difference, of course: a consumer can object to high CEO salaries by refusing to invest in a corporation’s stock or to purchase its products or services. But a consumer who buys a car can’t opt out of the huge expenses trial attorneys have added to every motor vehicle in America—$500 for every vehicle sold in America. Tom LaSorda, the CEO of Chrysler, doesn’t make $500 for every vehicle, even if one finds his salary objectionable for some reason. But as long as Lane is criticizing the “hypocrisy” of reformers, one wonders if he’ll turn the same searching eye complaining about high salaries to the multi-millionaire trial attorneys he lauds who, unlike the executives, make their money by destroying wealth and jobs rather than creating wealth and jobs.

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