Donald Trump’s First Citation in a Law Review

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Robin Effron's post over at prawfs about the law school discussion issues that Donald Trump inspires reminds me: I've been meaning to post something about his citations in law reviews.  For starters, if he were a law professor he'd be one of the most cited — I did a westlaw search recently in the law reviews file and found that about 750 articles mention him.  A lot for issues related to securities law.

Back in 2009 I asked a trivia question: who was the first person to cite Obama in a law review article?  Thinking on this this recently, I wondered what was the first law review article to cite Donald Trump?  I wish it was Seth Goodchild's note, "Media Counteractions: Restoring the Balance to Modern Libel Law," which appeared in the Georgetown Law Journal back in October 1986.  Why?  Because it cited him for this: "Donald Trump's complaint against the Chicago Tribune seeking relief for criticism of his proposed skyscraper was eventually dismissed. Wash. Post, Oct. 19, 1985, at A23, col. 1."  Alas, there were two pieces earlier.  

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the topic for which he was cited?  The answer is beneath the fold.

It was in an article by Rutgers Law prof John M. Payne, "Condominiums and the Ancient Estates in Land: New Context for old Learning" in Real Estate Law Journal.  Professor Payne was referring to Trump's challenge to "a New York State law that imposed a 10 percent tax on gains from real property transfers in excess of $1 million. In the case of condominium and co-op sales, moreover, the million-dollar-triggering gain was calculated on the basis of the aggregate consideration to the developer of the entire development, whereas in conventional subdivisions of single-family homes, the tax was triggered only as to individual improved lots sold for more than $1 million each."  This is the sentence: "While it is more than a little fanciful to contemplate Donald Trump's pricey Fifth Avenue condominium as a solution to New York's housing problems, the court's analysis is well within the tradition of deferential equal protection review of tax classifications."  
 

1 Comment

  1. CBR
    Reply
    May 2, 2016,

    Giving credit where it is due, it was actually Robin Effron's post–I just commented to it. But re: presidential candidate citations, your post made me run a search to see how Trump's citations compare to Ted Cruz's–and somewhat surprisingly, it looks like Trump has more Westlaw hits. I used to work for Ted back in Austin, and one of the things that has burned in my memory is his assessment that it takes "about a weekend, more or less" to write a good law review article. Maybe for Cass Sunstein or Eric Posner? Sadly, not for me.

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