Court Throws Out Lawsuit That Claimed Trump’s Election Caused ‘Unfair Competition’ – By Matt Naham (Law and Crime) / Feb 28 2020
A federal court affirmed the dismissal on Friday of a Washington, D.C. restaurant’s lawsuit, which alleged President Donald Trump’s assumption of office created an unfair business advantage for the Trump International Hotel.
The claim:
Cork noticed that the competitive balance shifted toward the Hotel after the 2016 election, when the Hotel began to attract more of the lobbyists, advocacy groups, and diplomats that Cork had relied on to fill its event calendar. Cork alleges that these customers chose the Hotel because of a “perception” that patronizing the Hotel “would be to their advantage in their dealings with” the Trump Administration. President Trump and his associates have encouraged and advanced this perception by, among other things, using the President’s surname as the Hotel’s logo and promoting the Hotel during press conferences and meetings with government officials. As a result, “foreign dignitaries have . . . flocked to the Hotel.”
In short, after Trump was elected Cork saw a downturn in business because people started doing more business at the Trump Hotel, in order to curry favor with the administration and enrich themselves.
Cork Wine Bar initially filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia Superior Court back in 2017, “alleging violations of the District’s common law of unfair competition.” But President Trump successfully had the case removed to federal court–the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. There, George W. Bush appointee Judge Richard Leon dismissed the lawsuit for failure to state a claim. An appeal followed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously affirmed the dismissal on Friday.
Continue to article: https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/court-affirms-dismissal-of-lawsuit-that-claimed-trumps-election-caused-unfair-competition/
