Donald Trump’s lawyer Edward “Sideshow Bob” Paltzik is gonna learn him some civil procedure if he has to step on every rake in Iowa. And he might!
His adventures began in December of 2024, when he and local counsel Alan Ostergren filed a trollsuit in Polk County District Court against pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for aggravated getting a poll wrong. The case was premised on the theory that the “poll” was actually a super-secret conspiracy by Selzer, the Des Moines Register, and the Register’s parent company Gannett to defraud Iowa “consumers” by supplying defective “merchandise” in violation of Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act.
But perhaps the president’s sparklemagic counsel should have spent less time on their whizbang theory and more time hiring a process server. In the event, they only managed to serve Gannett, a Delaware company doing business in New York, which instantly filed a notice of removal, bouncing the case into the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. And that’s how young Eddie learned about snap removal!
But Trump’s legal team had another trick up its sleeve! On January 31, they amended the complaint adding two Iowa lawmakers, US Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former state senator Bradley Zaun, as plaintiffs. The move was a transparent attempt to get the case remanded to state court by defeating diversity jurisdiction. In fact, Selzer hadn’t even polled Zaun’s race. Which is how Paltzik learned about fraudulent joinder, as well as judicial discretion. Exercising the second, Judge Rebecca Ebinger declined to find the first, but nonetheless ruled that the lawmakers were not “indispensable” parties and denied the motion for joinder. On May 23, she ordered Trump to file an amended complaint without the rando politicians in seven days.
Judge Ebinger did give the plaintiff a gift of sorts, though. Noting that snap removal hadn’t been definitively blessed by the Eighth Circuit, she certified the issue for interlocutory appeal. Trump immediately accepted the invitation and secured a brief stay until July 18 to file his amended complaint.
But time waits for no clown, and in the meantime the Iowa state legislature unanimously passed a bill to create an expedited motion for media defendants to dismiss SLAPP suits that target the freedom of the press. That bill, House File 472, was signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds on May 19 and takes effect on July 1.
Had Trump filed his amended complaint on June 1, as instructed, he’d have been in the clear. But amending his complaint on July 18 would likely have subjected his garbage suit to the fee-shifting provision of the new anti-SLAPP law in the unlikely scenario that he was able to persuade the Eighth Circuit to remand him to state court.
And so, with that anti-SLAPP clock ticking, Trump’s lawyers put on their MAGA hats and hatched a clever plan to get back into state court one day before the new law was scheduled to go into effect. On Monday, they filed a notice of voluntary dismissal in federal court and simultaneously re-filed in state court. If they could just remember to serve the Iowa defendants first, they’d be home free!
Except … THEY FORGOT ABOUT THEIR APPEAL TO THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.
Trump’s pending appeal divested the trial court of jurisdiction to dismiss his case. He needed to dismiss that appeal before voluntarily dismissing the complaint in the district court. Which he could have done, even without the defendants’ consent, so long as he did it first (and gave the court sufficient time to enter an order of dismissal).
And that’s how counselor Paltzik learned about Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure!
Hours after Trump tried to nope out of his lawsuit, Gannett moved to strike the notice of dismissal as improper. Today, Judge Ebinger ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to that motion to strike within 24 hours. Can’t wait to see what vagaries of civil procedure these geniuses learn next!
It’s difficult to imagine what they’ll say, but given that this is the team that thinks being wrong about math is a tort, they’ll undoubtedly come up with something. But for all intents and purposes, even if they win, the federal court will enter an order of dismissal dated July 2 or later. And that means the deadline for Trump to sneak into state court ahead of the new anti-SLAPP law has almost certainly come and gone.
Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez produce the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast.
The post Trump’s Lawyers Go To Iowa To Learn How To CivPro appeared first on Above the Law.
Donald Trump’s lawyer Edward “Sideshow Bob” Paltzik is gonna learn him some civil procedure if he has to step on every rake in Iowa. And he might!
His adventures began in December of 2024, when he and local counsel Alan Ostergren filed a trollsuit in Polk County District Court against pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for aggravated getting a poll wrong. The case was premised on the theory that the “poll” was actually a super-secret conspiracy by Selzer, the Des Moines Register, and the Register’s parent company Gannett to defraud Iowa “consumers” by supplying defective “merchandise” in violation of Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act.
But perhaps the president’s sparklemagic counsel should have spent less time on their whizbang theory and more time hiring a process server. In the event, they only managed to serve Gannett, a Delaware company doing business in New York, which instantly filed a notice of removal, bouncing the case into the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. And that’s how young Eddie learned about snap removal!
But Trump’s legal team had another trick up its sleeve! On January 31, they amended the complaint adding two Iowa lawmakers, US Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former state senator Bradley Zaun, as plaintiffs. The move was a transparent attempt to get the case remanded to state court by defeating diversity jurisdiction. In fact, Selzer hadn’t even polled Zaun’s race. Which is how Paltzik learned about fraudulent joinder, as well as judicial discretion. Exercising the second, Judge Rebecca Ebinger declined to find the first, but nonetheless ruled that the lawmakers were not “indispensable” parties and denied the motion for joinder. On May 23, she ordered Trump to file an amended complaint without the rando politicians in seven days.
Judge Ebinger did give the plaintiff a gift of sorts, though. Noting that snap removal hadn’t been definitively blessed by the Eighth Circuit, she certified the issue for interlocutory appeal. Trump immediately accepted the invitation and secured a brief stay until July 18 to file his amended complaint.
But time waits for no clown, and in the meantime the Iowa state legislature unanimously passed a bill to create an expedited motion for media defendants to dismiss SLAPP suits that target the freedom of the press. That bill, House File 472, was signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds on May 19 and takes effect on July 1.
Had Trump filed his amended complaint on June 1, as instructed, he’d have been in the clear. But amending his complaint on July 18 would likely have subjected his garbage suit to the fee-shifting provision of the new anti-SLAPP law in the unlikely scenario that he was able to persuade the Eighth Circuit to remand him to state court.
And so, with that anti-SLAPP clock ticking, Trump’s lawyers put on their MAGA hats and hatched a clever plan to get back into state court one day before the new law was scheduled to go into effect. On Monday, they filed a notice of voluntary dismissal in federal court and simultaneously re-filed in state court. If they could just remember to serve the Iowa defendants first, they’d be home free!
Except … THEY FORGOT ABOUT THEIR APPEAL TO THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.
Trump’s pending appeal divested the trial court of jurisdiction to dismiss his case. He needed to dismiss that appeal before voluntarily dismissing the complaint in the district court. Which he could have done, even without the defendants’ consent, so long as he did it first (and gave the court sufficient time to enter an order of dismissal).
And that’s how counselor Paltzik learned about Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure!
Hours after Trump tried to nope out of his lawsuit, Gannett moved to strike the notice of dismissal as improper. Today, Judge Ebinger ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to that motion to strike within 24 hours. Can’t wait to see what vagaries of civil procedure these geniuses learn next!
It’s difficult to imagine what they’ll say, but given that this is the team that thinks being wrong about math is a tort, they’ll undoubtedly come up with something. But for all intents and purposes, even if they win, the federal court will enter an order of dismissal dated July 2 or later. And that means the deadline for Trump to sneak into state court ahead of the new anti-SLAPP law has almost certainly come and gone.
Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez produce the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast.
