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Appeals Court Orders Trump To Pay $400,000 To Mom-And-Pop Paint Store He Tried Stiffing

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Appeals Court Orders Trump To Pay $400,000 To Mom-And-Pop Paint Store He Tried Stiffing

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A Florida appeals court has ordered one of President Donald Trump’s luxury golf resorts in Florida to pay a local mom-and-pop paint supply company that wasn’t paid in full for paint used to renovate the property’s 10 lodges in 2014, reports Bloomberg.

The Paint Spot sued Trump Endeavor, the entity set up by the Trump Organization to manage the property, in 2015 claiming it hadn’t been paid for paint it supplied to a subcontractor doing renovations at the resort. According to court filings, almost $33,000 of the total bill wasn’t paid for supplies provided between November 2013 and September 2014.

In a ruling issued Wednesday by Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal in Miami, Trump National Doral Miami has been ordered to pay the supplier more than $32,000 plus attorney’s fees of about $390,000. That’s more than triple the original paint bill of $142,530.

“The case should never have reached this stage,” Daniel Vega, attorney for The Paint Spot, said in an interview. Trump “refused to ever consider any type of reasonable settlement,” he said.

During the litigation, Vega says that the Trump team claimed it “had already paid too much for the paint.” Trump also fought the suit by claiming The Paint Spot didn’t file a proper construction lien against Trump National Doral Miami in order to secure payment.




During the trial, a project manager for Trump testified that M&P Reynolds Inc., which subcontracted its work to The Paint Spot, wasn’t paid in full because the resort had already paid it “a decent amount of money of the contract.”

“There was still a lot of work that needed to be completed so we used the money, M&P’s remaining balance, plus additional funds to pay to get the work done,” Jamie Gram, the project manager, said at trial.

Bloomberg adds:

Before becoming president, Trump and his companies had been sued hundreds of times across the U.S., with many of the lawsuits claiming Trump had failed to pay contractors. One such claim in 2000 sought $10 million for unpaid consulting fees to renovate New York’s San Moritz Hotel. That case was settled. Another contractor filed a $348,000 claim for exterior stone work on Chicago’s Trump Tower, a case that Trump won.

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