A federal judge tossed President Donald Trump's voluminous defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, and social media users were stunned by the brutal critique of his attorneys' work.
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday ordered the lawsuit struck but gave the president 28 days to file an amended complaint that meets the professional standard governed by the Federal Rules for Civil Procedure requiring complaints to "a short and plain statement" explaining why the pleader is entitled to relief under the law, and he repeatedly showed how Trump's suit fell short by being way too long.
"Alleging only two simple counts of defamation, the complaint consumes eighty-five pages," Merryday wrote. "Count I appears on page eighty, and Count II appears on page eighty-three. Pages one through seventy-nine, plus part of page eighty, present allegations common to both counts and to all defendants. Each count alleges a claim against each defendant and, apparently, each claim seeks the same remedy against each defendant."
"Even under the most generous and lenient application of Rule 8," the judge added, "the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible."
Legal experts and others pored over the judge's ruling and marveled at the judge's scathing takedown.
"A federal judge just summarily struck Trump's complaint against the New York Times, calling it, essentially, garbage," reported Politico's Kyle Cheney. "[The] George H.W. Bush appointee said Trump's complaint was so weighted down by superfluous self praise and meandering grievances that it had to be rewritten."
"So we can expect a joke today from Vance about how this judge should avoid boating offshore?" said HuffPost's S.V. Dáte.
"SAD!" chuckled Fox News pundit Jessica Tarlov.
"Why isn’t Trump fined for filing frivolous lawsuits?" wondered political scientist Larry Sabato. "And we want to see massive fines!"
"Remarkable judicial order in Trump NYT lawsuit - tl;dr, this is a lot of PR garbage, not a complaint, please re-file something serious," posted Semafor's Dave Weigel. "This is what you give a pro se litigant who's suing NASA for putting a telepathy chip in his dog's brain."
"When a federal judge writes in this way, it's an absolute beatdown," replied journalist Jason Rosenbaum.
"'Improper' 'impermissible' repetitive' 'superfluous' 'florid' 'protracted,'" noted Bloomberg's Zoe Tillman. "A US judge in Florida tossed, for now, Trump's $15B defamation suit against the New York Times, finding it 'unmistakably and inexcusably' ran afoul of court rules. Trump's lawyers get 28 days to try again."
"Protracted. long, extensive, detailed," added copy editor Benjamin Dreyer. "I'm really enjoying this dismissal."
"Lawyers, tell the folks at home how hard it is to get the complaint struck outright for something like that in federal court," posted Bluesky user Questionable Authority. "Oh my god, this isn't a benchslap, it's a bench hulksmash. I would literally cry if a judge ever did this to a complaint I wrote."