Lawyers for Trump stated Saturday that he “does not, and will not, contest [Daniels’s] assertion” that the settlement agreement is invalid, according to a document filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The lawyers promised that Trump “will not bring any action, proceeding or claim” against Daniels to enforce the terms of the contract.
.. “Nothing has changed,” Avenatti said of the chance he will be able to depose Trump and Cohen in the case. “We’re marching forward.”
Michael Cohen Drops Defamation Suits Against BuzzFeed, Fusion GPS Over Russia Dossier
Decision comes amid investigation of Donald Trump’s personal attorney for potential bank fraud and campaign-finance violations
President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has dropped a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed over the publication of an unsubstantiated intelligence dossier that alleged he played a role in working with Russia to help Mr. Trump become president.
Mr. Cohen is also dropping a similar defamation suit against Fusion GPS, the private investigation firm responsible for the dossier.
Since filing the suits in January, Mr. Cohen has come under criminal investigation for potential bank fraud and campaign-finance violations. His attorney said the probe made it difficult to continue with the defamation cases.
Former Fox News anchor sues Bill O’Reilly, alleging defamation
A former Fox News anchor has filed a lawsuit against Bill O’Reilly, claiming that the former star Fox host defamed her when he defended himself against sexual harassment accusations.
.. Laurie Dhue, who worked for the cable news network from 2000 to 2008, was one of five women whom the New York Times reported to have received settlements related to O’Reilly’s actions and behavior
.. Dhue points to a series of public statements O’Reilly made after the Times article ran, saying the accusations were false and made maliciously.
.. O’Reilly stated in April 2017 that he parted ways with Fox due to “unfounded claims.” In June, he blamed the allegations against him on “far-left progressive organizations that are bent on destroying anybody with whom they disagree.” In October, he said that he “didn’t do anything wrong.” He also said that he had never had any complaints filed against him in more than 40 years of work.
.. “Mr. O’Reilly has never mentioned Dhue, and any attention she has received has been the result of her own actions.
.. “The irony of all this post-settlement litigation is that O’Reilly — as well is his former (and late) boss Roger Ailes — expertly used non-disclosure/non-disparagement clauses plus stacks of money to enable and excuse his workplace behavior,” The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple wrote of that lawsuit. “Yet O’Reilly lacks the sophistication — which is to say, he won’t shut up — necessary to keep the whole putrid operation glued together.”
People Are Suing Equifax in Small-Claims Court and It’s Totally Brilliant. Here’s Why
Turn weaknesses into strengths.
This is when things start to get graceful; when you can find a way to turn something that should be working against you into an advantage. Haigh isn’t a lawyer, and this was his first time in court. But as Shang pointed out:
“When you’re showing up in small claims court, it’s not a literal battle between you and the other side. It might feel like it, but you’re really trying to impress the judge. It’s an arena for regular people to settle grievances. So Christian’s weakness–no law degree–became his strength.”
.. Turn strengths into weaknesses.
Haigh won, but Equifax appealed the judgment, and it sent a high-powered lawyer from the law firm of King & Spalding to oppose him–along with an in-house lawyer and a company vice president. It would have been natural to be intimidated, but Haigh said he realized this could actually be a good thing for him.
“Equifax, being a large national corporation, part of their litigation strategy is to hire the best people, so they hire King & Spalding. But they’re not really thinking through the fact that King & Spalding probably doesn’t go to small-claims court very often,” he told me.
Sure enough, Haigh writes in his blog post, this benefited him when the company’s lead lawyer didn’t know (or seemed not to know) that in small claims court, hearsay evidence is admissible. Thus, he wasted time and effort arguing that Haigh shouldn’t be allowed to use a report about the Equifax breach from Senator Elizabeth Warren as evidence.
Show up.
As the great philosopher Wayne Gretzky once put it, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. And I guess you lose 100 percent of the small-claims court cases you never get around to filing.
.. Keep showing up.
As long as I’m punctuating these principles with quotes, how about one supposedly from Winston Churchill: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
.. “we realized if they pursued their cases in small-claims court, it might be a good opportunity. So we put out an announcement that we would fund Equifax cases, and they really started coming in.”