Trump ordered to pay $798,000 to one previous Trump University student
 

In short, Trump filed an illegal SLAAP lawsuit against a previous Trump U student after she filed a class action suit to have the $60,000 in tuition she paid refunded.

As usual Trump dragged out the suit for years, raising her attorneys fees to $1.3 million. Judge Curiel cut those fees down to $800,000 and ruled in favor of the student, who withdrew from the class action.

Trump is appealing. The class action suit remains in litigation.

-------------------

SAN DIEGO (CN) - Donald Trump's profit-seeking business college must pay $798,000 in legal fees to a former student, for filing an anti-SLAPP suit, a federal judge ruled.
Tarla Makaeff sued Trump University and Donald Trump in 2010, in a proposed class action alleging deceptive business practices. Makaeff claimed she shelled out $60,000 for a real estate program that consisted of seminars that were little better than infomercials.
Trump University countersued , accusing Makaeff of defaming it in online postings and elsewhere.
Makaeff moved to strike the counterclaim under California's anti-SLAPP law.
U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez denied the motion, but the 9th Circuit reversed in 2013.
After the district court granted Makaeff's motion to strike in June 2014, she asked for $1.3 million in attorneys' fees and costs. Her attorneys claimed they'd spent 2,226 hours on the case, a number Trump's attorneys disputed.
The case is no longer a class action and Donald Trump himself no longer is a defendant.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel on April 9 awarded Makaeff $798,779.24 in fees and costs.
Makaeff's attorneys sought hourly rates of $250 to $440 for associates and $600 to $825 for partners, citing a 2007 survey in the National Law Journal and their experience handling class actions.
Trump's attorneys called these rates unreasonable and pushed for a blended hourly rate of $300 on the grounds that Makaeff's attorneys had no anti-SLAPP litigation experience and assigned too many partners to a "simple motion."
Curiel found the rate requests for associates and partners reasonable, but denied Makaeff's request for staff attorney and paralegal fees because she did not provide enough evidence to support the requested hourly rates or give enough background information to enable the court to determine an appropriate prevailing rate.
Trump University argued that the hours submitted by Makaeff's attorneys should be reduced because they often lumped together multiple tasks, duplicated hours by appointing more than one partner to a task and committed staffing improprieties.
Curiel scaled back the number of hours expended on most of the plaintiffs' 25 proceedings by 20 percent, others by 50 percent and some he declined entirely, reducing the fees award by $542,920.85 to $790,083.40.
The judge also cut $513.46 in requested costs for an award of $8,695.81.
Curiel denied Makaeff's motion to apply an upward multiplier to offset any reduction in fees because he said she "has not met her burden that a contingency fee enhancement is appropriate here."
The Trump Organization told Courthouse News it will appeal. FULL STORY

what a bunch of parasites...

1 parasite kept on going to one seminar after another for probably years racking up $60k in costs... I must be slow, but why the fuck would you keep going to seminars if you didn't find them valuable?

then there is a 2nd group of parasites who spent 2200+ man-hours @ $1.3M cost to bitch how first parasite got defrauded even though she voluntarily kept on purchasing seminars and then kept going to them...

unbelievable... :1orglaugh

Trump filed an illegal retaliatory SLAAP lawsuit against the woman, because she filed the class action suit against Trump U, found guilty of filing a retaliatory SLAAP suit and forced to pay $798,000.

But Trump is the victim in your eyes unbelievable... :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

the op is thoroughly confused. the plaintiff filed the anti-slaap motion against Trump's countersuit.

this was a year ago, since then the plaintiff has bailed out of the class-action lawsuit.

Charlie Manson was a victim of that parasite Sharon Tate.

:1orglaugh

The parasite here is Trump.

$60 K is two classes at Drumpf "University"

news to me, have any sources for that? as far as I know, introductory seminars were in the ~$1000 ballpark, which is the same ballpark as any other seminar on any topic...

more "advanced" seminars may have been more expensive, but still, the plaintiff here purchased MULTIPLE seminars... any normal person would buy one, find that the information presented is not useful and would stop buying any other seminars from the same company... no?

it's kinda like some surfer joining same porn site every month, then year later charging it all back... which obviously is a scam by the surfer, NOT the website owner...

Maybe, the Trump University lawsuits should go forward before the election -- Trump could be exonerated of all wrongdoing ... Why is it delayed ? :1orglaugh

rhetorical question </sarcasm>

imagine having a POTUS with 3500+ pending lawsuits.


ahahahahahahahahahahahah.

:2 cents::2 cents:

as much as i like the donald, the university is ugly. its not the only sleaze in his closet. im suprised the media has not made more of ivanas rape accusation. maybe the media thinks they are clever & will unleash that trivia in november.

But OP, enjoy deluding yourself for the next 5 months that trumps sleaze will outweigh 2 FBI investigations. you may be moving to canada next year.

:)

It is said that at night you can still see her ghost wondering the halls looking for her baby and sobbing like a little bitch. Scary stuff

I don't agree with this bs...I don't like Trump, but you can't cry foul because you were duped by a con man. She could have accepted the initial loss and moved on. Trump U was shady, but its legal.

I guess there's a legal argument, but to me it speaks more to the character of Donald Trump than anything.

This is the entire basis of the lawsuit. It was all bait and switch. "Sign up for our intro course and we'll tell you all of Trump's secrets". They take the course, and learn a thing or two, but but then everything is designed to upsell them more classes. They had instructions on how to trick people into taking more classes.

Holy crap, they were instructed to have people max out their credit cards to take these classes - which never delivered what they promised.

why do you confuse upselling with bait and switch after admitting that students "learned a thing or two" from the bait and switch/upsell?

you're confusing 2 things and contradicting yourself in the same paragraph.

I don't agree... so lets say I go to a SEO seminar using similar upsell tactics as Trump U...

I get done with the first intro seminar, then either think "this is good shit, I learned a lot of good tricks, this was well worth the $1k I invested"... in that case I might buy more advanced seminar and learn even more... what's wrong with that?

or, "this is bullshit, these scammers are teaching 10 year old tactics", in that case I would ask for a refund/charge back/etc, or perhaps even just let it go and consider it lesson learned... but certainly I would not buy any more seminars from the same company...

Donald Trump made promises, and guarantees he couldn't keep and lied to take money from people in a pressure cooker scam sales environment then filed illegal SLAAP lawsuits against some of those wanting money back.

Karma is knocking on Trumps door, and he'll pay dearly for the wrong he did.

@woj

What if Larry Page University gave that SEO seminar and charged you $66,000 then the Google folks fed you bullshit and the featured instructor was Matt Cutts?

Would you feel that Larry Page delivered on his promise to make you a GREAT SEO EXPERT?

You would probably be suing them too :2 cents:

That's not quite what happened, it wasn't one $60k seminar, it was a series of seminars that added up to $60k...

so like I said, if after each seminar I felt I got good value out of it (even despite confusion as to who the instructor was supposed to be), I would continue to buy additional ones... if not, obviously I would stop...

so it makes zero sense how someone can purchase multiple seminars from the same company then claim they got scammed...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

make 'murica great again

this is probably not the only payments he's gonna have to make

Jesus Christ hated lawyers, Shakespeare hated lawyers, they are indeed parasites in business suits. Judges are former lawyers so they see 2200+ hours billed on what is a simple litigation and condone it. And we idiots let this go on.

Even worse, today these law firms are outsourcing their 'research' to Indian lawyers making $15/hour but you won't see them disclosing that to a judge who is assessing costs.

The easiest mark to take down is the one you have already conned and taken down before -- that's the way con artists work.

You or I might be smarter than to fall for that shit -- but a lot of suckers are not -- that is why we have anti-fraud laws ...

Caveat emptor is one thing -- intentional fraud is another -- let the Courts decide based on the laws of evidence.

For some reason it's not sinking into peoples heads what I've said many times, he's already been found guilty by the NY supreme court justice Kern 2 years ago. Trump keeps dragging out proceedings to delay paying, as usual. The California class action against him was filed way back in 2010

"Justice Kern ruled in 2014 that Trump University never obtained licenses, holding Mr. Trump personally liable. She has yet to determine the damages Mr. Trump must pay. " SOURCE

..or perhaps the 1st seminar was decent/good but used as a hook to get people to sign up to advanced classed which were not very advanced or good..

Imagine having a POTUS with so much blood on her hands.

Most "Americans" are dimwitted fuck hoping to play the victim game.

The parasite is Trump. Look up the meaning of the word.

Yes lawyers qualify for that, they are on both sides.

telling people they are going to be taught by hand picked elite real estate gurus, yet sending brassmonkey to read the scrip is bait and switch. :1orglaugh

No, its one seminar and then bait and switch. Empty promises to make money by being taught real estate biz by real pros. Thats like selling porn site with "fresh and all exclusive content" yet as soon as you pay you see Paul Markhams teens from 1980's.

I agree with you.

Clinton v. Jones
520 U.S. 681 (1997)

If Trump is elected he will end up in civil court -- there is no stay for the sitting president's term of office per the SCOTUS.

Trump should buy an offshore island and go away already :2 cents:

You might be comparing apples to elephants.

If you go to an SEO seminar, you are going to a seminar for an industry are you already in and know about some what. You aren't looking for a career change, aren't desperate, and don't have heavy handed sales people breathing down your neck. You would see the seminar was of little value, and would walk away.

The people who attended the Trump University seminars didn't have any prior exp in this area, were looking for a career change, were desperate, and hit with these sales people that made them seem they were stupid if they didn't sign up for more courses.

You would attend a SEO seminar and quickly see it was bullshit, but some of these people went to a single Trump University seminar and were suckered into buying more and more courses to unlock secrets that just didn't exist.

This was just fraud. They had instructions on how to sucker people out of money.

:1orglaugh:thumbsup

Part of the problem is that many of these types of places lead you along so you don't realize it is a scam of sorts until you have already invested time and money. You go to the first class/seminar and they give you some information then they tell you they will give you more in the next class. The next thing you know you have gone to several classes only to them be told you will have to spend even more money to get all the information.

No it's not. I was in the porn business. Many of those teaching the Real Estate business, weren't in Real Estate.

That's like selling a porn site yet as soon as you pay, you see a blank page.

It's all about CASH MONEY. This IS America, after all.