D.C. Restaurateurs Plan Appeal of Ruling Favoring Trump’s Hotel Profits

A pair of Washington, D.C., restaurant owners and their attorneys on Tuesday vowed to appeal a district judge’s ruling on Monday that rejected their claim that President Trump’s ownership of the Trump International Hotel near the White House violates laws against unfair competition.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of the District of Columbia in rejecting the case brought last year by the Cork Wine Bar wrote that “unfortunately” for the plaintiffs, past case law shows that “competition is not a tort.”

To uphold the complaint announced last year at a press conference by Diane Gross and Khalid Pitts, the judge wrote, “I would be condemning a broad swath of legitimate business conduct. I would be foreclosing all manner of prominent people—from pop singers to celebrity chefs to professional athletes—from taking equity in their companies they promote.”

Eric Trump, the president’s son who helps run the Trump International Organization, welcomed the ruling as a “significant victory” in a statement to the Associated Press. “This case was nothing more than a politically motivated attack,” and “frivolous nonsense,” he added.

Scott Rome, a principal in the Veritas Law firm that represents the Cork restaurant, told Government Executive on Tuesday that his clients would appeal. “We think Judge Leon improperly applied the concept of unfair competition,” Rome said. “He basically found that the president competing with other businesses in Washington, D.C., is not different from any other celebrity.” Given that Trump is in government, Rome added, “that’s a bit of a stretch.”

Trump’s unprecedented decision to remain lessor of a luxury hotel regularly patronized by lobbyists and foreign dignitaries has drawn multiple lawsuits, most of them built around arguments that Trump is violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause that forbids the president from accepting foreign gifts.

Judge Leon said the restaurateurs’ case raises “constitutional questions of profound weight and import” but that he didn’t need to rule on those because the plaintiffs did not show lawbreaking within the limited definition of unfair competition.

Plaintiff Khalid Pitts tweeted on Monday: 

.@OConnellPostbiz - Judge Leon's decision was that "Unfair Competition" is not the proper vehicle to address Trump’s abusive of power, and we respectfully disagree and will be making our arguments through the appellate process. #corkdc

— Khalid Pitts (@KhalidPitts) November 26, 2018