(NewsNation) — A judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s legal team to reduce the length of a complaint against the New York Times by half and refile within 28 days.
Trump is suing the paper for articles that cast doubt on his business success and empire, and has a long list of other criticisms of the president, including those that arose from interviews with former Trump administration employees and associates.
Judge Steven Merryday wrote that federal rules of civil procedure dictate that claims be concise and direct, while allowing that some pleadings will be longer than others depending on the issue at hand.
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Merryday noted that the initial pleading came in at 85 pages for just two counts of defamation.
“Even under the most generous and lenient application of Rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible,” he wrote.
Merryday described a pleading full of “repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations.”
“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,” Merryday wrote. “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.”
At the conclusion of his ruling Merryday struck the complaint, giving the Trump legal team 28 days to turn in a revised pleading that is no longer than 40 pages.
