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A New York Times paper rack is seen July 23, 2008 in New York City.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Florida Judge Tosses Trump NYT Defamation Suit Mere Days After It Was Filed
"Even under the most generous and lenient application of [the rules], the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible," said Judge Steven Merryday.
Sep 19, 2025
US President Donald Trump's $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, which was widely ridiculed by many legal experts upon its filing, has already been thrown out of court.
Judge Steven Merryday of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Friday ruled that the lawsuit filed by Trump violated Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires "'simple, concise, and direct' allegations that offer a 'short and plain statement of the claim.'"
To illustrate this point, Merryday noted that the Trump lawsuit takes up 85 pages despite only containing two simple counts of defamation against the newspaper.
The judge then knocked Trump's lawyers for taking dozens of pages to make their central arguments in the complaint, and he pointed out that "Count I appears on page 80, and Count II appears on page 83." This led him to conclude that "even under the most generous and lenient application of Rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible."
"It's never a good sign when a judge has to remind a lawyer that '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,'" said Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Merryday, an appointee of President George HW Bush, also subtly ridiculed the president's attorneys for stuffing their complaint with "repetitive and laudatory" praise of their client, including one instance in which they said his reality TV show, "The Apprentice," exemplified "the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the [Z]eitgeist of our time."
Merryday proceeded to strike Trump's claim, while giving his attorneys 28 days to amend it and refile.
Trump's attorneys indicated that they would refile the complaint in a statement to CNN.
The Trump lawsuit against the Times, which was filed just four days before Merryday's ruling, singled out "a malicious, defamatory, and disparaging book written by two of its reporters," as well as "three false, malicious, defamatory, and disparaging articles" that had been published during the 2024 election campaign.
The book in question was "Lucky Loser," written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, which did a deep examination of the president’s finances and contrasted it with what it described as his false claims of unprecedented success in business.
The three articles cited by the lawsuit included one that quotes Trump’s own former chief of staff, John Kelly, warning that he would rule “like a dictator” in his second term; a news analysis piece that described Trump as facing a well documented “lifetime of scandals”; and an article by Buettner and Craig that is an adapted excerpt from their book.
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US President Donald Trump's $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, which was widely ridiculed by many legal experts upon its filing, has already been thrown out of court.
Judge Steven Merryday of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Friday ruled that the lawsuit filed by Trump violated Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires "'simple, concise, and direct' allegations that offer a 'short and plain statement of the claim.'"
To illustrate this point, Merryday noted that the Trump lawsuit takes up 85 pages despite only containing two simple counts of defamation against the newspaper.
The judge then knocked Trump's lawyers for taking dozens of pages to make their central arguments in the complaint, and he pointed out that "Count I appears on page 80, and Count II appears on page 83." This led him to conclude that "even under the most generous and lenient application of Rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible."
"It's never a good sign when a judge has to remind a lawyer that '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,'" said Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Merryday, an appointee of President George HW Bush, also subtly ridiculed the president's attorneys for stuffing their complaint with "repetitive and laudatory" praise of their client, including one instance in which they said his reality TV show, "The Apprentice," exemplified "the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the [Z]eitgeist of our time."
Merryday proceeded to strike Trump's claim, while giving his attorneys 28 days to amend it and refile.
Trump's attorneys indicated that they would refile the complaint in a statement to CNN.
The Trump lawsuit against the Times, which was filed just four days before Merryday's ruling, singled out "a malicious, defamatory, and disparaging book written by two of its reporters," as well as "three false, malicious, defamatory, and disparaging articles" that had been published during the 2024 election campaign.
The book in question was "Lucky Loser," written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, which did a deep examination of the president’s finances and contrasted it with what it described as his false claims of unprecedented success in business.
The three articles cited by the lawsuit included one that quotes Trump’s own former chief of staff, John Kelly, warning that he would rule “like a dictator” in his second term; a news analysis piece that described Trump as facing a well documented “lifetime of scandals”; and an article by Buettner and Craig that is an adapted excerpt from their book.
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US President Donald Trump's $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, which was widely ridiculed by many legal experts upon its filing, has already been thrown out of court.
Judge Steven Merryday of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Friday ruled that the lawsuit filed by Trump violated Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires "'simple, concise, and direct' allegations that offer a 'short and plain statement of the claim.'"
To illustrate this point, Merryday noted that the Trump lawsuit takes up 85 pages despite only containing two simple counts of defamation against the newspaper.
The judge then knocked Trump's lawyers for taking dozens of pages to make their central arguments in the complaint, and he pointed out that "Count I appears on page 80, and Count II appears on page 83." This led him to conclude that "even under the most generous and lenient application of Rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible."
"It's never a good sign when a judge has to remind a lawyer that '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,'" said Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Merryday, an appointee of President George HW Bush, also subtly ridiculed the president's attorneys for stuffing their complaint with "repetitive and laudatory" praise of their client, including one instance in which they said his reality TV show, "The Apprentice," exemplified "the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the [Z]eitgeist of our time."
Merryday proceeded to strike Trump's claim, while giving his attorneys 28 days to amend it and refile.
Trump's attorneys indicated that they would refile the complaint in a statement to CNN.
The Trump lawsuit against the Times, which was filed just four days before Merryday's ruling, singled out "a malicious, defamatory, and disparaging book written by two of its reporters," as well as "three false, malicious, defamatory, and disparaging articles" that had been published during the 2024 election campaign.
The book in question was "Lucky Loser," written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, which did a deep examination of the president’s finances and contrasted it with what it described as his false claims of unprecedented success in business.
The three articles cited by the lawsuit included one that quotes Trump’s own former chief of staff, John Kelly, warning that he would rule “like a dictator” in his second term; a news analysis piece that described Trump as facing a well documented “lifetime of scandals”; and an article by Buettner and Craig that is an adapted excerpt from their book.
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