Omit needless words

The New York Times reports that a federal judge has dismissed the current occupant’s lawsuit against The New York Times, Times reporters, and Penguin Random House:

Judge Steven D. Merryday, of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, said the president’s 85-page complaint was unnecessarily lengthy and digressive. He criticized Mr. Trump’s lawyers for waiting until the 80th page to lodge a formal allegation of defamation, and for including, ahead of it, dozens of “florid and enervating” pages lavishing praise on the president and enumerating a range of grievances.

“A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective,” Judge Merryday wrote. “Not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.”

When drafting this complaint, the current occupant’s lawyers could have heeded Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, which cautions against “inject[ing] opinion”:

We all have opinions about almost everything, and the temptation to toss them in is great. To air one’s views gratuitously, however, is to imply that the demand for them is brisk, which may not be the case, and which, in any event, may not be relevant to the discussion. Opinions scattered indiscriminately about leave the mark of egotism on a work. Similarly, to air one’s views at an improper time may be in bad taste. If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at cats.

Or the lawyers might have heeded a recent episode of the BBC podcast Word of Mouth, in which barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind talks about judges’ preference for concise arguments, sans hyperbole, sans bluster.

I.e., omit needless words.

The complaint is here. (I got as far as page 44.)

The judge’s response is here.

[“The mark of egotism”: how fitting. We can all guess whose advice the lawyers followed, or at least which audience they had in mind.]