Trump golf course ordered to pay $5.7 million to ex-members
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, February 1, 2017
By Chris Dolmetsch and Susannah Nesmith
Bloomberg
President Donald Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, Florida, was ordered by a judge to pay $5.7 million to former members who had sued to get refunds for their memberships.
Some former members of the Trump National Golf Club Jupiter sued to get their money back after Trump allegedly changed the membership rules following his 2012 acquisition of the money-losing venture from Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and barred them from the facilities. Trump told them if they didn’t like the new rules to get lost.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra found the golf club breached the former members’ contract by denying them access and failing to refund their deposits within 30 days. The members who sued paid a total of $4.85 million in deposits, which the judge ordered returned, and $925,010 in interest.
“It’s great to win the case,” said Norman Hirsch, one of the former members. “I was pretty confident that we would as long as the court was unbiased. I was assured that the judge would be, as long as he wasn’t scared he’d be attacked,” in the way Trump had attacked a San Diego judge in a lawsuit over his failed real estate seminars.
“We respectfully disagree with the judge’s decision and intend to file an appeal,” Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, said in a telephone interview.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Steve Jaffe, didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment on the ruling.
When Donald Trump bought the club 16 miles north of West Palm Beach, he agreed to assume the liability of about $41 million in member deposits that were refundable. The club features a 7,531-yard Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, as well as a spa, tennis, fitness center and restaurants.
Marra said Trump’s club breached a contract to provide “persons lawful permission to use and access the club.” Without a right to access, “no membership would exist” and an “essential purpose of the membership contract would be nullified,” the judge said.
