Donald Trump Court: Journalists encouraging someone to break a confidentiality agreement is protected speech

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from the election-loser-continues-losing-streak dept

Lame duck president and serial bad faith litigant Donald Trump has once again been told that his arguments are bad and that he should feel bad. The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Suing has sued multiple times over the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which detailed many things the on-his-way-out-the-door president didn’t want published.

After a temporary (but still silly) injunction against Mary Trump and her publisher, the courts reversed course and began respecting the First Amendment, allowing sales of her book to continue. In his book there are details about Donald Trump and his siblings’ efforts to dry their father before his death, just for the sake of avoiding state inheritance taxes.

(Weakly) represented by anti-free speech legal advocate Charles Harder, Trump lost this case. He also lost a bogus defamation lawsuit against the New York Times — this one (falsely) claiming an op-ed defamed him by presenting opinions and actual facts.

This case — recently thrown out by a state trial court — is a mixture of all of the above. This lawsuit was brought by Donald Trump against Mary Trump, as well as the New York Times, whose reporters spoke with Mary Trump in violation of her nondisclosure agreement to reveal more information about the financial scandal. Donald’s behavior. (via Volokh Conspiracy, which is inexplicably unrelated to the decision)

The decision [PDF] from Judge Robert R. Reed made it clear that journalists who encourage people to violate treaties do not make them liable for the violated treaty. What journalists do is called “journalism.” And it is very clearly protected by the First Amendment.

The gist of the plaintiff’s claim is that a reporter for The Times caused his niece, Mary Trump, to obtain 20-year-old tax and financial documents held by her attorney and disclose them in violation of a settlement agreement in 2001. The Times, allegedly, then used those documents to publish a lengthy article in 2018 that reported that the plaintiff had allegedly participated in dubious tax and other more financial plans in the 1990s. In this action, the plaintiff does not specifically dispute the truth of any statements made in the article. Instead, the plaintiff alleges that The Times defendants’ contact with Mary Trump resulted in her violation of certain confidentiality provisions of the 2001 settlement agreement, giving The Times and the its journalists liable for tortious interference with contract, aiding and abetting tortious interference with contract, unjust enrichment, and/or negligent supervision. The plaintiff is seeking $100 million in damages.

It doesn’t matter much, even if the plaintiff (who is Donald Trump) tries to frame his arguments here in the tone of a fully-made damage assessment of $100 million. What Trump and his terrible lawyers insist is that contractual interference is actually something called “newsgathering,” which is fully protected by the First Amendment.

Plaintiff does not cite a single case in which any court, whether state or federal, has held that a reporter is liable for inducing his source to violate a confidentiality provision. Indeed, New York courts have consistently rejected efforts to impose tort liability on the press based on allegations that a reporter induced a source to violate a nondisclosure agreement.

And how is he? There is no precedent to support his insane claim that reporters talking to someone about revealing information they are sworn to withhold is the nature of the business. And this reporting has a very high public value, because it speaks to a sitting president who is very reluctant to discuss his past financial dealings, especially following a long-standing presidential tradition of issuing their federal tax returns.

Of course, Trump would welcome suing Mary Trump for breach of a contractual agreement. What he can’t do is target a news source for reporting infringing content.

Given Highland Capital’s existing precedent and the New York Constitution’s strong protections for news gathering, plaintiff’s attempt to impose civil liability on The Times and its reporters lacks “a substantial basis in law.” [CPLR 3211(g)] and contrary to the fundamental principles underlying the First Amendment and the Constitution of the State of New York. Accordingly, the tort claims asserted against The Times and its reporters are dismissed in their entirety.

The lawsuit was dismissed, at least in terms of the allegations against the New York Times. Even better, Trump is now on the hook for the Times’ legal costs, thanks to the court’s application of the state’s anti-SLAPP law.

As explained above, New York’s anti-SLAPP statute applies to this lawsuit because it is “an action involving public petition and participation” as defined in section 76-a(1)(a) of the New York Civil Rights Law. Therefore, because of the dismissal of the claims asserted against The Times and its reporters, The Times defendants are entitled to recover their costs and attorney’s fees.

The next legal battle is over the fees Trump owes the New York Times. Regardless of the final amount, the Times shouldn’t hold its breath waiting for the check to arrive. If Trump can’t even be bothered to pay the lawyers who represent him in his constant stream of frivolous lawsuits, it’s likely that the people he’s sued, intimidated, and otherwise annoyed are near the top of the list. Donald Trump’s accounts payable.

Filed under: 1st amendment, anti-slap, confidentiality agreement, donald trump, free speech, journalism, mary trump, new york Companies: ny times

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