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The amount he collects is likely to be minimal. The statute that he is suing under allows for the greater of statutory damages of $1,000 per disclosure or actual damages. He would have to prove actual damages, which would be complicated, time consuming, and would require him to disclose the details of all of his business wheelings and dealings during the relevant time period, and then prove with a reasonable degree of certainty that he lost a particular sum. It can't be "my reputation was harmed and I recon I would have made billions if not for these disclosures"; it would have to be more like "I had a deal in place that was worth $x and I lost that deal after the inappropriate disclosure". This is made even more difficult by the fact that the tax returns were only disclosed to media outlets, who didn't actually publish the returns but merely reported on their contents. Additionally, Trump is the last person in the world to claim that anything in his tax returns would actually be embarrassing, so he's relying on a theory that he suffered reputational damage by the media outlets mischaracterizing the returns. It should also be noted that in cases where courts have awarded actual damages
So it's no surprise that he isn't going for actual damages here, which is odd if you read the complaint because most of it is a long whinge about how the New York Times unfairly portrayed his financial situation. He's going for statutory damages of "at least ten billion" on the theory that every time somebody read an article about the returns it counted as an unauthorized disclosure. This is almost certain to fail, as courts have consistently ruled that it's based on the number of times the discloser reveals the information and not on how many people see it; if the guy had put the returns on a slide projector in a room of 200 people, it would be one disclosure, not 200. So we have disclosures of tax returns to two outlets. It's unclear how many returns were actually disclosed. If we assume for the sake of argument that he disclosed 20 years of returns to both outlets, that would be $40,000 in statutory damages.
The complaint also asks for punitive damages, and the facts of the case seems to support them. However, Federal courts usually award these as a multiple of compensatory damages, and at a rate of 2/1 this would get an additional $80,000. So $120,000 total, which is money I'd like to have but a far cry from ten billion.
And this is where the UK would kill this litigation stone dead. If he's very unlikely to get more than $120k here in the UK what would happen very soon after the suit was filed is that the IRS would make a Part 36 Offer of say $200k + admitting to the leak in return for the suit being ended, with the consequence that if Trump didn't publicly accept this offer in 21 days (far cry between $200k and $10bn, the acceptance itself would lead to massive egg on his face) then if things went to trial and Trump won less than the $200k the IRS had offered earlier he would be liable for all the reasonable legal costs of the IRS from the date the offer expired.
It would put Trump in a proper bind: either take egg on his face from settling a $10bn suit (or so he says) for $200k or proceed to trial, win $120k and then have to shell out $15m for the IRS's legal costs in defending the claim, which leads to even more egg on his face. Final result: No $10bn suit ever gets launched because all pathways end with Trump getting egg on his face. Instead given that both parties are well aware that the true value of this suit is somewhere around $120k a private secret settlement is quickly achieved without the need to resort to public litigation.
And here they make the same settlement offer. The only difference is that if he declines, the IRS files a pretrial motion that would limit statutory damages and you'd get the same result. The only difference is the matter of attorneys fees, but at that point the IRS wouldn't really have that many because it's a straightforward case without a lot of complicating factors. The only really issue is the statue of limitations, but that's just a couple motions and an argument in front of a judge.
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Why would he get egg on his face for settling low? It seems to line up with everything he does--make an outrageous demand and settle for peanuts if anything.
I don't know: "Trump settles legal claim for 1/50,000th of the amount he said it was worth" sounds like a pretty big loss to me, much like how if I'm bringing a claim that I think is worth £2mn but then I win £2000 at trial or through settlement that looks very much like a loss even though I may technically have won.
A gain is still a gain
If you're expecting to gain £10,000 but then you gain £10 instead that very much feels like a loss, it's like getting a bad bonus for the year, nobody is happy even if they're still making money they didn't have yesterday.
it may feel like a loss but is it?
Yes, if I've worked hard for a £250k bonus all year and I genuinely expect to get it and then I get stiffed with £100k I will be so so so pissed off (new job time basically).
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