Why the Trump U Fraud Case Is Not Done
When Donald Trump's lawyers cut a deal to pay $25 million to keep the President of the United States from ending up in court on racketeering charges related to the systematic defrauding of thousands of Trump "University" students, the judgment promised that any plaintiffs who refused settlement could take their cases to court. When the final court documents came down, however, the agreement ignored the stipulation to sue.
Long story short, one plaintiff, Sherri Simpson, has hired a top-notch legal team to take her case to court, as the original agreement guaranteed. Clips from interviews with her attorneys, from Vox:
The $25 million pales compared to the $170 million he’d [Trump] incur if he lost a RICO trial for racketeering and fraud. And the court had already greenlighted the RICO claims for trial.
If the settlement stands, this means that our client Sherri Simpson and others like her who were defrauded by Trump could only get about one-seventh the value of their claims under this settlement. Plus, no public trial, no admission of wrongdoing, and no court order to prevent the same thing from happening again. . . .
. . . . Because everyone (Trump, the lawyers, and the court) was in a big hurry to get the case settled after the election, they cut some corners. The main problem is that, as I mentioned earlier, they reneged on their promise to opt out or, in the words of the official notice, “to be excluded from any settlement.” . . . .
. . . .In a nutshell: The Ninth Circuit will have to decide if it’s okay, under the due process clause of the US Constitution and the federal class-action rules, to do what the settlement did here: promise people you’re going to let them opt out of any settlement and then later renege on that promise. That’s the main issue. We also argue that class members should be able to see the terms of any settlement before they have to give up their claims forever. . . . .Schools Matter: Why the Trump U Fraud Case Is Not Done:
