The main link is to the Reuters story about the summary dismissal of Donald Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, but what I really wanted to highlight is the dismissal order itself. It’s just four pages and easily skimmed, and is a fantastic takedown of the bloated 85-page complaint Trump’s lawyers filed on his behalf.

Written by United States District Judge Steven D. Merryday, it opens:

As every member of the bar of every federal court knows (or is presumed to know), Rule 8(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, requires that a complaint include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”

Civil rights lawyer Joshua Erlich commented on Bluesky:

The court sua sponte dismisses the case for violating Rule 8(a).

So that means the court, all on its own, looked at the complaint and said it’s too long, too scattershot, too arbitrary to even count as a complaint. Never seen this happen to a private party with counsel.

(Apparently, it’s hard to get a complaint struck sua sponte for a Rule 8 violation in federal court. Congratulations to Trump’s legal team on this momentous achievement.)

The order calls the complaint “decidedly improper and impermissible,” where readers “must labor through” the “many, often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations” that are filled with “abundant, florid, and enervating detail.”

It ends:

[…] a complaint remains an improper and impermissible 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 putatively supporting the pleader’s claim for relief. 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. 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.

Unsparing.

Trump was invited to refile his complaint (and will), but it’s clear that Judge Merryday was having none of Trump’s bullshit.

(The lawsuit itself, of course, is also utter bullshit. It’s a classic Trump maneuver: sue for an absurd amount of money, then settle for a smaller number to make the problem “go away.” It’s less direct than demanding a payoff, but equally obvious—a Trumpian lesson in “How to Structure a Bribe.”)