When questioned on (his own) assessment of his wealth, Trump is always pointing out his name or his brand are worth many millions. While I doubt that’s really true he DOES sell the use of his name. Even for enterprises he doesn’t own or run.
So my question is about it’s value. If you paid some huge commission/franchise fee to slap his name on your hotel or casino, can you seek a rebate of some kind if he and his antics destroy the value of the name?
He seems to sue anyone for anything. Can he be sued if he destroys the value of the name he’s charging people to use?
I’m not a lawyer but I’ll take a stab at it: You should know what you’re getting into with Trump. Unless there’s some very specific verbiage about what behavior constitutes breach of contract (“This contract will be nullified in the event a video of Donald Trump boasting about sexual assault is produced”) I don’t see how anyone can make a claim against him. Since he’s pulling the value of his “brand” out of his ass, it would be nigh impossible to sufficiently demonstrate how that value has dropped due to his recent behavior. I suppose you could point to drops in hotel occupancy as evidence, but that could be caused by any number of other factors (even if we know in our bones it’s because Trump’s name is quickly becoming toxic.)
The Times today had an article about tenants in some of Trumps branded apartment buildings petitioning to have the name changed. It seems that the contract for the building requires it to keep the name for a certain time period - the owner said that they’d reconsider changing if after that. Though they are removing Trump’s name from the welcome mats and the uniforms of the doormen, which I suppose is not covered by the contract.
So it all depends if there is an escape clause in the various contracts. Remember how quickly companies were able to dump Tiger Woods after he was found screwing around.
I read that article. The woman who started it said it was embarrassing to have to tell people she lived in a Trump tower and wanted it changed. Trump supporters generally cannot afford to live in Trump towers. IIRC, she mentioned that her rent was upwards of $9000. Over $100,000 a year.