In her judgment dismissing the class action complaint, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield of New York City recalled that in 2006, Trump engaged into an endorsement arrangement with ACN Opportunity LLC to promote the latter's marketing training services for independent business owners.
In the complaint, three plaintiffs stated that their decision to buy ACN's products was influenced by Trump's support.
Of them, two claimed to have made no money at all from the enterprise, and one claimed to have made only $38 in two years.
The plaintiffs claimed they were unaware that Trump was receiving millions of dollars in exchange for endorsing ACN.
Schofield concluded that it would be impossible to identify a class of people who were negatively impacted by Trump's support since people can be persuaded by a variety of sources, such as their own research into the business, other promotional materials, and personal stories.
"The majority of the content on the Opportunity Discs [promoting the company] portrayed testimonials from various successful IBOs, highlighting how ACN has enabled them to have, for example, a relaxed work life, expensive cars, and large homes," the judge stated.
"The nature of Trump's alleged misstatements also raises individual questions of whether any given putative class member believed the statements and therefore relied on them," Schofield said.
"The record evidence shows that some IBOs knew or assumed Trump was a paid spokesperson," the speaker continued.
Furthermore, it's possible to see Trump's claims about ACN, such as that it's a "great opportunity" with a "winning business model" and a "proven track record" of "creating millionaires," as standard puffery rather than blatant lies.
Schofield not only rejected the establishment of a class action lawsuit, but also ordered the three plaintiffs to provide briefs by Tuesday outlining their reasons for not having their claims separated from the others' and sent as separate lawsuits to the relevant district courts in their home states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and California.
The judge's verdict on Truth Social prompted Trump to write, "Today we had a Total and Complete Victory against Far Left Lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, on her ridiculous ACN Class Action Suit, yet another Election Interference Case."
"It was ruled that there can be no Class Action, and Certification was denied!" he stated.
In May, Kaplan defended E. Jean Carroll in a civil lawsuit alleging that Trump had sexually assaulted her in a department store changing room during the 1990s.
Carroll's identity has been challenged by the former president.
Joe Tacopina, the attorney for Trump, claimed Carroll's account was false during his closing remarks in May.
Tacopina declared, "The entire story is obviously an unbelievable work of fiction."
He added that Carroll's legal team's strategy was to get the jurors to despise Trump "enough to ignore the facts."