The unanimous decision by Chief Judge Pryor, joined by Judges Brasher and Kidd, in Trump v. Clinton et al.:
These four consolidated appeals concern five separate orders. In 2022, between his terms of office, President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against dozens of defendants, alleging several claims, including two under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and three under Florida law. The district court dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice for failure to state a claim. On the defendants’ motions, the district court also entered sanctions against Trump and his attorneys, under Rule 11 and under its inherent authority. While those orders were on appeal, Trump and his attorneys moved the district court to reconsider each order in the light of a report by Special Counsel John Durham. They also moved to disqualify the district judge. The district court denied both motions. Two defendants ask us to sanction Trump for bringing a frivolous appeal.
We affirm the orders with a caveat. Because the district court lacked jurisdiction over one defendant, it erred in dismissing the claims against that defendant with prejudice. So we vacate the dismissal of those claims and remand with instructions to dismiss them without prejudice. Because Trump’s remaining claims are untimely and otherwise meritless, we affirm the dismissal of the amended complaint with prejudice for the other defendants. And because Trump and his attorneys committed sanctionable conduct and forfeited their procedural objections, we affirm both sanctions orders. The Durham Report does not change our conclusions, and the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider the disqualification motion. Yet, because the appeal of the dismissal order is not frivolous, we deny both motions for appellate sanctions.
Among other findings: “The district court rested its bad faith finding on three features of the amended complaint. First, it found that the amended complaint was a shotgun pleading filed for a political purpose. Second, it found that the amended complaint contained factual allegations that were ‘knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.’ Finally, it ruled that the amended complaint was based on patently frivolous legal theories. Trump challenges all three grounds. We affirm on the first and third.”
