“We are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose.”
“The former president indicated to associates that he essentially believed it should be paid by his attorney instead of him.”
I’ve never been one to let DJT off the hook, but I agree with him in this case. He’s not the one who is supposed to know that a claim has no legal basis. That’s what lawyers are for. Moreover, sources reported that Trump wanted to drop this suit when he realized to whom it had been assigned, but his lawyer recommended seeing it through, so I can fully support his position that the lawyer should be the one to get out her checkbook.
If the judge is correct, if the suit is so obviously fraudulent, the judge should have recommended a review of the lawyer’s credentials as well. The best way to prevent completely bogus lawsuits is to come down hard on the lawyers who file them. Make sure those lawyers (not the litigant) have to pay court costs and the legal costs of the defendants, and that they are subject to additional fines and possible disbarment.
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Note:
I don’t know enough about the applicable law to know whether the suit has no valid legal basis, but I know enough about the world to know that its claims are hilariously stupid and disingenuous. The suit alleges, among other fictions, a conspiracy between James Comey and Hilary Clinton in 2016. That would have been the worst conspiracy in history, since Comey pretty much single-handedly tilted the election to Trump with his mishandling of the Clinton e-mail investigation. We know that Trump himself knew that because the White House actually said that Trump fired Comey for being unfair to Clinton! That was a lie, of course. We all know the real reason. But still – that was the claim and it directly contradicts the lawsuit.
Biden taking classiffied docunents as vp. He has no authority to declassify. He is in more trouble then trump cause he stuff wasnt locked up. Plus hunter, lived there and probably saw them. Trumps was under lock and key, plus he can declassify. But we worry about law suits, what about biden getting treated diffrent then trump.
Utter nonsense.
In what way has Biden been treated differently?
Trump’s home was not raided because he had classified documents (and certain items belonging to the American people). It was raided because he refused to return them. If he had immediately returned everything when the archives asked for them, there would have been no raid, and no further legal action at all. If Biden had refused to co-operate, he also would have been subject to a search.
Biden’s possession of the documents is now being investigated. At the moment, we don’t know what he had, and we don’t know exactly what the DoJ is doing, so it’s impossible to reach any conclusions.
And yet Alec Baldwin (an actor) should know that the gun he is being handed by a trained professional armorer who has assured him carries ONLY dummy rounds but is actually holding ONE real bullet. Baldwin is therefore legally responsible for the accidental death of a coworker… Makes sense to me.
I think one of the other commmenters noted that Baldwin, wearing his producer hat, may have been responsible for hiring or using an unqualified armorer to save a few bucks. I don’t know that for a fact, but if it is true, it would certainly give me a different perspective on the case.
Judge Middlebrook stated:
“(Trump is) a prolific and sophisticated litigant (who uses the courts) to seek revenge on political adversaries.
“He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process”
This would suggest that Trump indeed knew that his case was frivolous
However, if Trump does plead ignorance and stupidity, I will concede that there is ample evidence on his side
I believe he did know it was horse manure, but he found an officer of the court greedy enough to say it was actually rich Belgian chocolate, despite knowing better.
But once again I have to rely on the judge’s opinion that the suit had no conceivable legal basis. If it was that obvious, I assume the lawyer also knew that, but filed it anyway, in contravention of her oath of office and her professional code of conduct.
Plus, as you deftly noted, Trump has the ultimate defense – his own ignorance. That’s a difficult claim for anyone to dispute. What lawyer will take that case? “Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it is my observation, and I will prove here today, that Donald Trump has a keen, subtle mind, as well as an extensive bank of knowledge.”
As I understand it, the lawyers work for you. It’s your suit they file in your name.
If they do something against your wishes and get you in trouble, you can then sue the lawyers or file complaints with the bar or whatever. But it’s your suit. It isn’t like it happened without his knowledge. At any moment he could have said “those guys are fired, suit is canceled, nevermind” and he didn’t because he’s a complete imbecile.
A lawyer is an officer of the court. He is obligated to the Constitution and the law first, his client’s fee second. If I offer a lawyer a million dollars to sue Tom Hanks because he had sex with my girlfriend, he or she is obligated to determine the basis of my accusation, and then to say no for many, many reasons. If he does not, he is the one responsible for Tom Hanks having to waste his time and money in legal proceedings, and he is the one who is wasting the court’s time and money. No responsible lawyer should accept that money and, if he or she does, he should face the consequences for betraying his oath as an officer of the court.
The ABA code of conduct:
A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.
The legal oath explained by the ABA:
Are we obligated to defend the Constitution if a client is paying us to do the opposite? Without question or qualification, the answer is “yes.”
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Of course it is not strictly required to use a lawyer to file a lawsuit. If Trump were to choose that route, then all the liability would devolve to him.
Sorry…the ABA is persuasive only. It’s the State Bars that matter.
I take it you didn’t look at the ABA page. “The legal oath explained by the ABA” is a summary of the elements common to all state bars.
(And in turn, most state bars just about copy and paste from the ABA recommendations. In Ohio at least, that is it literally true. Their code of ethics is identical – verbatim – to the ABA recommendation.)
You should know it’s the interpretation of the wording that matters in law and not the words themselves. Those differ by State Bars in practice.
Trump’s lawyers clearly deserve whatever the federal judge and/or their state Bar decides to do with them. But Trump might still be liable for the fine. If Trump wants to argue that he believed his lawyers when they told him there was evidence supporting the suits they filed? Well then Trump might have an excellent malpractice suit he can file against his lawyers. Well it will be an excellent suit if he can prove he didn’t know the suits were frivolous. I’d say that the former Cheetoh and Chief might have to file that suit pro se because he’d be suing his lawyers. But there will always be some lawyer greedy enough to take his money. But they would be smart to have a clause in their retainer agreement that Trump must indemnify them for any fines imposed on them by a court or their bar association with a bonus if they end up disbarred.
Even before I went to law school, I thought that the United States should adopt the British system that requires the party that loses a lawsuit to pay the winner’s attorney fees. Lawyers could still take cases on contingency, but if the defendant won at trial, the lawyer would be responsible to pay the defendant’s legal fees. I think that system would cut way down the number of frivolous suits filed every year. I remember I found myself representing Paramount Pictures in a slip and fall case. A woman had slipped and fallen on ice when she was walking past an HMV Record store in Manhattan. What did that have to do with Paramount? Not very much. Inside the store was a Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster was selling tickets to the Madison Square Garden premier of the Howard Stern movie Private Parts. There was a large crowd on a line to buy tickets and that line was out onto the sidewalk. The plaintiff had stepped onto an unshoveled part of the sidewalk to get around the crowd and slipped. Why Paramount hadn’t made sure the sidewalk was properly shoveled I’ll never.. Wait I do know why. Because it had nothing to do with them. But the plaintiff’s attorney named Paramount as a defendant because they had deep pockets and he figured he could extract nuisance value. He got it. I think it would have been much more fair for that lawyer to pay Paramount’s legal fees.
I don’t know if it is similar to accountants, who are under a ton of scrutiny, but if it is, the client is ultimately responsible for their books/return. They generally bear the brunt of the punishment.