Speaking of Trump and judges...

A Manhattan judge issued a ruling on Thursday that thwarted the Trump campaign’s attempts to keep a lawsuit out of open court.

[...]

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by Jessica Denson, a former campaign staffer who filed a complaint last November that alleged she was subjected to “harassment and sexual discrimination” while she worked on Trump’s White House bid in 2016. Lawyers for the Trump campaign tried to force the case into private arbitration based on an agreement signed by staffers that included nondisclosure and nondisparagement provisions.

  Yahoo

This will not come as welcome news to the Trump cabal if Omarosa decides not to cooperate with their arbitration endeavor in her case.

In her decision, Judge Arlene Bluth of New York State Supreme Court disclosed flaws in the wording of the agreement that she said limited its scope.

[...]

Denson is suing the Trump campaign in state court for $25 million, alleging she was subjected to “severe and pervasive slander, aggravated harassment, attempted theft, cyberbullying, and sexual discrimination and harassment” by her former supervisor, Camilo Sandoval, and other campaign staffers after she received a promotion to “mobilize the campaign’s Hispanic engagement effort” in September 2016. [...] According to Denson’s complaint, which was filed in November 2017, the harassment included being “routinely overworked,” the mysterious disappearance of her laptop charger, being treated in a “demeaning and abusive matter,” and being subjected to a conversation with Sandoval where he “laid down on a couch in front of her” in a “physical, sexual posture.”

By that measure, I'm guessing every woman on the Trump campaign has the same basis for a claim.

Trump campaign attorneys responded a month later by filing a request for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association, and demanding damages of $1.5 million because Denson “publish[ed] certain confidential information and disparaging statements in connection with a lawsuit she filed against claimant in New York Supreme Court.” On March 19, lawyers for the campaign from the firm of Larocca Hornik Rosen Greenberg & Blaha moved to take the case out of court and have it heard in private arbitration.

[...]

Arbitration is an alternative to trial, a hearing before arbitrators (often retired judges) in which the records may be sealed from the public. The parties involved also have some ability to decide who will hear the case, unlike the random assignment process typical of the courts.

[...]

Bluth’s ruling noted flaws in the agreement Denson was required to sign. The judge suggested the document was worded badly, and implied it could have done what the campaign’s attorneys wanted if it had been written better.

As we've seen countless times, Trump has only the best lawyers.

“As an initial matter, the Court observes that the arbitration clause confines arbitration to ‘any dispute arising under or relating to this agreement,’” Bluth wrote, adding with emphasis, “It does not require arbitration for any ‘dispute between the parties’ or even ‘any dispute arising out of plaintiff’s employment.’”

Jesus. That's incredible. That wording says plainly that the signer agrees to aribtration of any dispute about the arbitration contract. Rather limiting, wouldn't you say? How did they get it so wrong? Only the best lawyers.

The judge also found that the agreement only covers “a specific list of five prohibited acts” rather than all aspects of Denson’s employment. The document provided for “no disclosure of confidential information, no disparagement, no competitive services, no competitive solicitation, and no competitive intellectual property claims.”

“There is simply no way to construe this arbitration clause in this agreement to prevent … pursuing harassment claims in court. The arbitration clause could have been written to require any disputes arising out of … employment to go to arbitration. … But it did not,” wrote Bluth.

Well, now that those brilliant lawyers have gotten a lesson from Judge Bluth, it will.

But wait. That's not the best part.

Bluth’s ruling became public today when Denson tweeted a copy of the order. It is notable because Denson is representing herself and still defeated the Trump campaign’s lawyers.

LOfuckingL.

And yet, there's more...

In an ironic twist, President Trump was personally a party to the New York case that establishes the legal principle controlling Bluth’s decision. That 1993 case, Trump v. Refco Properties, Inc., concerned a dispute among the partners who own the Grand Hyatt near Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan; it established that a party may not be forced into arbitration unless their agreement to arbitrate “expressly and unequivocally encompasses the subject matter of the particular dispute.” President Trump sought to avoid private arbitration in that case, and won the issue on appeal. Bluth specifically cited that decision in her ruling against Trump’s campaign.

Doh!

Brilliant.