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Trump-branded hotel seeks dismissal of legal battle with events company
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 9 December 2022
A Trump-branded hotel in Florida is trying to get a lawsuit, filed against it in relation to a bungled booking for a music event, dismissed on the basis that the legal complaint has been filed in the wrong US state.
Live events firm 4U Promotions sued the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach near Miami back in August. The hotel complex has a licensing deal with former US President Donald Trump to use the Trump brand.
4U Promotions claims that it agreed a deal earlier this year to stage a big old event at the hotel. That event would be a land-based party linked to an annual rock n roll themed cruise that 4UP has traditionally staged each year, but which was paused during the pandemic.
In its lawsuit, 4UP said that it agreed a booking with the hotel’s Director Of Sales covering a stack of rooms and a performance space so that it could stage its Decades Of Rock & Roll Cruise Reunion at the complex. The Director Of Sales then said that she would send over all the paperwork for the booking, meanwhile 4UP got on with promoting its event.
However, the paperwork never materialised and eventually the Trump hotel said that it was under the impression 4UP had found another venue and therefore the booking had never been finalised. Which is when 4UP went legal, suing the hotel for breach of contract.
That lawsuit was filed with the courts in Ohio, even though 4UP is based in Tennessee and the hotel is obviously situated in Florida.
In its legal filing, the events company said that the Ohio courts should hear the case because “4UP’s cause of action arose and 4UP is being injured in this judicial district, and because defendants reside in this forum, do business in this forum and target customers in this forum”.
That is not the case, though. Or at least that’s what the Trump International Beach Resort reckons. And to that end, it wants the 4UP lawsuit dismissed, or at the very least moved to a court in Florida.
“As plaintiff acknowledges”, it said in a legal filing this week, “it is a Tennessee corporation merely authorised to do business in Ohio. There are no further allegations to suggest that defendant – a hotel located in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida – could possibly have caused injury in the state of Ohio for failing to reserve a block of rooms in its Florida hotel for this Tennessee corporation’s various nationwide clientele”.
“Furthermore”, the new filing continues, “contrary to its generic assertion that defendant ‘resides’ in this forum and does business in this forum, its specific allegations admit that defendant is a Florida limited liability company with its principal place of business in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida – namely, operating the hotel”.
“Complaint’s specific allegations debunk the last of the generic assertion”, it goes on, “that is, that defendant targets customers in this forum. The complaint specifically provides that ‘4UP contacted Trump Resort to secure hotel rooms and performance space the event’, and that defendant’s representative simply responded to provide the information requested by plaintiff”.
With all that in mind, “the complaint must be dismissed or, in the alternative, transferred to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida”.
We await to see how 4UP responds.
