Judge to consider timing of Trump University trial
Posted May 6, 2016 12:21 am.
Last Updated May 6, 2016 9:00 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SAN DIEGO – A federal judge in San Diego said he wanted a trial by the middle of this year in a lawsuit against Donald Trump over the now defunct Trump University. That was before the real estate mogul appeared headed for the Republican presidential nomination.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is expected to address the trial’s timing at a hearing Friday in San Diego. Trump’s lawyers, who have put the candidate on a list of witnesses who may testify, have signalled opposition to a trial while Trump is in the race.
“This will be a zoo if it were to go to trial,” Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said at a hearing in March.
The lawsuit is one of three that accuse Trump University of fleecing students with unfulfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate at seminars that cost up to $35,000.
The San Diego federal class-action lawsuit says Trump University, which no longer operates and wasn’t accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring students to buy more, and in the end, failing to deliver.
Trump has repeatedly pointed to a 98 per cent satisfaction rate on internal surveys. But the lawsuit says students were asked to rate the product when they believed they still had more instruction to come and were reluctant to openly criticize their teachers on surveys that were not anonymous.
The judge has been eager to get the six-year-old case to trial, suggesting August at a hearing late last year. He appeared to have second thoughts by March as Trump surged in the primaries.
Jason Forge, an attorney for the plaintiffs, suggested at the March hearing that a trial be scheduled in June but appeared open to another date.
“I would be foolish to even pretend to know how a case like this should be handled at this point because it really is an unprecedented level of publicity,” Forge said.
