Court: Complaint That Spends 79 Pages Praising the Client Shall Be Rewritten
As every member of the bar of every federal court knows (or is presumed to know)," the federal court pointed out to some of its members, Rule 8 requires that complaints be limited to a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." But if every lawyer knows it, why did the judge need to say it? Because he had just been forced to read an 85-page complaint in which the first 79 pages were devoted to often repetitive ... but superfluous allegations" that mostly praised the lawyers' client while also insulting the defendants.
Why would someone write a complaint in such a way? The citation itself offers a clue. See Trump v. New York Times Co., No. 8:25-cv-2487-SDM, 2025 WL 2680597 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 19, 2025).
This is one of the many cases that the President of the United States has filed in order to complain that somebody said something bad about him. He is frequently right about that, but tends to overlook the fact that the speakers are frequently right, too. And even if they aren't, because he is a public figure" the First Amendment still protects them unless he can prove actual malice."
Well, feel free to debate the merits of this and other such cases amongst yourselves. The people we are directly mocking here are the lawyers who needed or agreed to write 85 pages (with 77 pages of exhibits) to state two simple defamation claims. The short and plain statement" part of Rule 8 is rarely invoked against anyone who isn't already a prison inmate (their complaints are often short but rarely plain"), but the judge was within his discretion to invoke it here.
Personally, I would invoke it against any complaint that includes a first paragraph like this one, the kind that, as I have bitched about before, repeats information that was in the caption just a few inches above and assumes the reader is a complete idiot who won't be able to figure out who's who unless you define even obvious things for them:
Plaintiff, PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, by and through his counsel, sues Defendants, NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY (the New York Times" or the Times"), SUSANNE CRAIG (Craig"), RUSS BUETTNER (Buettner"), PETER BAKER (Baker"), MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT (Schmidt"), and PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC (Penguin") (collectively, Defendants"), and alleges as follows:
See, e.g., A Note From Kevin (Hereinafter, Me") to All Attorneys (Hereinafter, You")" (Feb. 20, 2020); and THIS AGAIN (Hereinafter, This')" (Mar. 23, 2022), and even How to Start a Brief" (Feb. 8, 2013).
I just noticed that the only person not treated this way in the paragraph above is PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP himself, and I'm guessing that wasn't an oversight.
Anyway, paragraphs like that are unfortunately not enough to trigger Rule 8 (yet), much less the caning they deserve. Here it was the 70-some pages that followed, mostly devoted to statements like this: With the overwhelming victory [in 2024], President Trump secured the greatest personal and political achievement in American history." Compl. 2. Well, we can all agree that losers like Neil Armstrong (Armstrong") and Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln") should be embarrassed by their paltry contributions, but the point here is whether this allegation might lend support to a viable defamation claim. Some would say no, because even if one disagreed with the assertion above, and the defendants very well might, that would be an opinion, not a fact, and therefore not actionable.
Nor is it immediately clear, for example, why the fact that [the name of] Donald Trump has written [appears on] many books would be relevant (or why the covers of those books must be shown), or whether his dad was successful," or whether The Apprentices ratings were directly attributable to the identity of the host, or ... well, you get the idea.
In any event, here the judge did not reach the merits, holding only that 79 pages of the foregoing is more than a reader should have to endure, and under the circumstances, more than Rule 8 allows. He struck the complaint and said any amended version may not exceed 40 pages.
It didn't bode well for the plaintiff that this case was assigned to Judge Steven Merryday, not because Merryday is known to be anti-Trump but because he is known to be anti-BS and also quite creative. He's already been mentioned here at least three times for those reasons, including in How to Start a Brief," cited above. See also Judge Denies Motion for Continuance Based on Eclipse" (Aug. 21, 2017); Judge Won't Continue Trial so Attorney Can Enter Hemingway Look-Alike Contest" (June 29, 2012). None of that means this plaintiff won't get a fair hearing from Merryday, but it does mean the amended complaint should come in under 40 pages.
We'll know in a few weeks (if the government is open by then).
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