There’s a lot going on in my friend and co-blogger Steve Calabresi’s post below about Judge Engoron’s ruling in the civil case brought against Donald Trump and his business entities. I don’t want to respond to all of it. And I don’t have a particular view of whether it was wise for the New York Attorney General to bring the case. But I’m also not sure of what specifically is legally reversible about Judge Engoron’s ruling.
I want to start with a big-picture idea that Steve raises, which I have seen widely repeated, that the case against Trump is illegitimate because Trump’s actions were (as Steve puts it) “a victimless crime.” On this thinking, the banks that lent money to Trump weren’t harmed by Trump’s lies. Maybe lies are just how rough-and-tumble New Yorkers do business. As Steve claims, “is apparently standard practice in the New York State real estate market where borrowers often overstate the value of their assets.” And if the banks that gave him loans had their loans repaid, what is the harm?
In thinking about this question, I think it helps to say a bit about the New York law at issue. Here’s my understanding (and I hope readers will correct me if I’m wrong). Under New York law, you need to register businesses with the state. The registration is effectively a license to do business. And one of the state Attorney General’s 16 statutory duties is to bring an action in equity against businesses that “engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.” The action in equity asks for injunctive relief, “enjoining the continuance of such business activity or of any fraudulent or illegal acts, directing restitution and damages and, in an appropriate case, cancelling any [business] certificate filed[.]”
Should it matter that the particular lies that were the premise for the Attorney General’s action involved lies in obtaining loans that were successfully repaid? The basic idea, I take it, is akin to when a state suspends a driver’s license for drunk driving. The state has granted the person a driver’s license, premised on the idea that the person will drive reasonably safely. But when a person has been shown to drive dangerously, the state will come in and revoke the license. Critically, that’s true even if the person who drove drunk made it home safely on that particular trip.
We can imagine a person who drove drunk but didn’t crash might think it unfair to revoke their license. It’s a victimless crime, they might say; no one was hurt that night. But I gather we are accustomed to the idea that it’s the established risk of harm, not actual harm, that is the plausible reason to withdraw the license. A person might have somehow made it home safely last night, but perhaps it’s not a bad idea to take away the keys for a bit so they don’t engage in that same risky conduct again tomorrow night.
The case against Trump and his business entities, I take it, was sort of a business equivalent of that. Trump and his business associates were engaged in so much lying, and so much fraud, the Judge concludes. And their credibility on the stand was, as the Judge puts it, severely compromised. They were able to repay the loans, true, but they wouldn’t have gotten the loans without the lies. And they reaped massive profits from lying, Judge Engoron concludes, as they were able to make deals they wouldn’t have been able to make, and at rates they wouldn’t have been able to get, had they been truthful. Acting as chancellor in equity, Judge Engeron requires Trump and the businesses to give up their ill-gotten gains, says Trump can’t run a New York business for three years, and imposes other equitable remedies.
Steve repeatedly claims that this law has never been used “that way.” I’m not sure what “that way” means. But based on a quick Westlaw search, I do see opinions about other equitable enforcement actions that Attorney General Letitia James brought under this law against other businesses. In just the last few months, for example, opionions include People by James v. Richmond Capital Group LLC, 80 Misc.3d 1213(A) (N.Y. 2023) (enforcement action against loan sharks, ordering a long list of equitable remedies including canceling contracts); People by James v. Mashinsky, 79 Misc.3d 1237(A) (N.Y. 2023) (refusing to dismiss action brought by James against CEO of crypto company based on alleged scheme to defraud investors by inducing them, through false and misleading statements, to deposit their digital assets with his now-bankrupt company); James v. Scores, 79 Misc.3d 1118 (N.Y. 2023) (enjoining towing company from engaging in predatory towing practices).
As I said up at the top, I don’t have a particular view of whether AG James should have brought this case in the first place. I also don’t like the state intervening and preventing someone from doing business in the state, especially when everyone is on notice that he’s not truthful. So if the opinion is wrong, and gets reversed, I certainly don’t mind that. But with the state having brought the case, it’s also not obvious to me what particular part of Judge Engoron’s 92-page ruling is legally wrong. Anyway, I’m not an expert in this New York law, and if readers or others have specific portions they take issue with, I’d be very interested to hear it. Just cite the page or pages with the error and explain the problem, and I’m very interested to hear about those particular objections.
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