Thread by @AkivaMCohen

Hey, #LitigationDisasterTourists in some shocking news.

And yeah, the court has what to say. Gotta finish off some client work before I dive into this later today.

But while you wait, here's the link to the thread from when this was filed.

https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1507362878113914886

https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1568205704913195009

Folks, you probably don't even need me to break this one down for you, because judge Middlebrooks wrote most of it for a lay audience (most likely because he realized that included Trump's "lawyers"). Let's hit the highlights!

Here's the judge's summary of what specific nonsense Trump tried to argue

Brutality.

I mean, not just the "I agree" line, though that's an evisceration. But ... if the judge is gonna take some time to not just bounce you out of court, but to read you the riot act for what an organizational mess your complaint is as a legal document, you done fucked up

Ouch.

This is basically begging the Defendants to file a sanctions motion, and I have to wonder if they sent Rule 11 letters when they got the complaint. I certainly would have.

Alina. Habba. Does. Not. Know. Law.

And it's inexcusable. This isn't esoteric stuff buried in an obscure precedent somewhere. It's the first thing you'd find if you were competent and started your research by looking at the legal elements of your claims. Unreal

1) I may or may not have mentioned that exact thing.

2) YOUCH

I would retire to a monastery somewhere if a judge ever said this about me.

BTW, what are the odds that conservative lolyers will stop confusing "pleading" with "briefing" after this?

FLEE THE COUNTRY

I'm going to skip the section on shotgun pleading and how to properly name Doe defendants. Basically, unlike every other circuit, the 11th circuit dramatically disfavors "we incorporate by reference every prior allegation", and Habba, being from NJ, didn't know that.

To be fair, that's exactly the type of thing I'd expect my local counsel to warn me about, so that's not really on her - except to the extent that she was involved in picking local clownsel instead of someone competent

Here, Habba managed to get Trump's claims tossed by not remembering the Westfall Act, which Trump tried to use as a defense in E. Jean Carroll's suit against him (defamation for saying she lied about Trump raping her).

Trump's lawyer in that suit is now Alina Habba, btw.

More on why Trump's claims here Westfell on their face, including "you buffoons incorporated by reference the IG Report, meaning the judge can consider its conclusions when deciding whether to dismiss your complaint"

Those claims get dismissed without prejudice, meaning that if Trump wants to he can go to the House and FBI and ask them to pay him for his "damages" and THEN sue the defendants again ... except for the rest of the dismissal order saying it's meritless

Next we have the "what the fuck do I have to do with Florida" defendants.

Trump tried to argue "I can sue anywhere for RICO" which is true, but only if you, you know, have a valid RICO claim, which he doesn't. Otherwise, they need to have something to do with FL ...

which he didn't really bother to do.

Like what the hell even is this: you gave information to someone who passed it to someone else who used it in a way that impacted Florida? Or "you hurt the country as a whole"? How high were they when they floated this?

"they knew that Florida is a state in the United States which was an important one" MIGH GUD

1) Hooray, he cited linear time!

2) I can't believe that a real life federal judge needed to explain the part in red

Now for the substance. You have to work to plead yourself into dismissal on the statute of limitations, and oh boy did they ever manage it. How did they not oppose a request for judicial notice??

Oh, right, they were focused on the "no statutes of limitations apply to me because I was President" argument (which was dumb). You can't argue "it was impossible to sue because I was prez" when you were suing left and right as President

"Toll because I was waiting on the government's criminal RICO claims" doesn't work because, oops, there weren't any of those

Last, we've got "fraudulent concealment" - i.e. these bad people did things that prevented me from learning I had claims.

But MY DUDE. You have been banging this drum for years. Stop it.

Next we have "but I didn't really know I was injured until later" ... except you pled that you had expenses (which aren't an injury, but what you claimed as your injury) beginning in 2017. So ... no.

Trade secret not gonna save you either. Bye

Now in most cases, the court would stop there. The claims are time-barred. Why bother addressing whether they state a claim?

Middlebrooks doesn't - he eviscerates the substance as well. The normal reason to do this is to appeal-proof an opinion. But here, there's probably also a

"because fuck if I'm going to let him argue that he lost on a technicality" aspect to it, too

YEEEEP

Do you know how hard it is to file a RICO claim that doesn't satisfy ANY of the RICO elements? Not because RICO elements are easy to show. But because if you can't satisfy ANY, why the fuck did you think it was RICO in the first place?

All the
Wrong things
You did
This pleading
I'll take
One rip
At your
Stupid shit

Sorry it ain't so
This isn't how it goes
Turn the lights off
Wheelbarrow Trump home
Keep his head still
He's mentally ill
Turn the lights off
Carry him home

BTW, that red highlight? "MY. BOXES." cc @SonnyBunch

Anyway, thus ends the "trade secret" idiocy

Last (on predicate acts) wire fraud, which Trump tossed in at the desperate last moment. And I'm sure this is as much a surprise to you as it is to me, incompetently

Having not managed to identify a single predicate act, Trump obviously also failed to prove a pattern of predicate acts. But also, as I mentioned the first time around, he hasn't pled "continuity" (read that thread for a fuller explanation)

What about the enterprise requirement? He at least proved a RICO conspiracy, right?

Uh ... no.

How about injury?

Shocking

OK, moving on from RICO to "we can't plead defamation, so why don't we just call it 'injurious falsehood'"

Linear time strikes again.

And also, no, criticizing you isn't "injurious falsehood" you authoritarian garbage fire

"You hurt my reputation" isn't injurious falsehood; it has to be a loss of *business*. So Trump claimed to be disclaiming reputational damages. But he can't shoehorn this into the injurious falsehood bin; he has no property rights in a political career - and he WON in 2016

Plus, again, he missed ALL the elements. No injury, no falsity, etc. - and, oh, right, the First Amendment clearly protects people offering opinions on Trump's conduct in office.

Fuck off, Donny

Next, malicious prosecution, which fails to even get up off the couch since there *was no prosecution*

Plus - and thank you, Judge Middlebrooks, for reinforcing this - the Mueller Report *didn't* exonerate Trump. It expressly said as much. So it wasn't a "favorable termination"

Next we have the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim based on the DNS data, and yeah, we already know how that ends.

Not only didn't Trump bother pleading any unauthorized access to the DNS data, he didn't plead any resulting financial loss

On theft of trade secrets: again, lolno. But also, loltoolate

On to the Stored Communications Act in Judge Middlebrooks' disaster tour, and again, what the hell were you waiting for?

But also, he didn't really plead an SCA claim to begin with; Trump isn't an ISP or an email provider

Last (IIRC) we have agency (not a separate claim) and respondeat superior (same).

Like I said lo these many months ago, this is not a thing. There's no standalone cause of action for this stuff. And all the underlying claims were garbage. So ... in the trash this goes, too

Now come the hammer blows

First: LOL, no. I'm not letting you try a *third* time when you went with this abomination of a pleading after the Defendants had helpfully made all these points about what you screwed up before you filed your amended complaint.

GTFOH

And second ...

No. See, you're done with me. This case is finished.

But I? I'm not done with you.

Middlebrooks expressly retained jurisdiction to consider sanctions

That ... well, remember how often y'all ask me "will there be any consequences" and I say "probably not"?

There will be consequences here. There's absolutely zero question he's granting sanctions for this dumpster fire - the only questions are "against whom" and "how bad

/fin