I doubt there's even a statistically significant number that have had to do so
The number of law suites appears to be 3500 +/- which statistically is in the high for any businesses
Trumps dealings with his contractors and screwing those that had invest in his failed ventures has been well documented - this before he decided to run for political office
I have a number of problems with your response. First, it comes from a USA today article that was published Jan 1, 2016 and specifically includes cases filed against him
in the year after he announced his candidacy, which is not "before he decided to run."
Second, it was of all cases "involving" Trump or any of his businesses. That's grossly non-responsive on two factors, first there's no intimation that they have to do with defaults for work payments in any significant respect, but second - and more importantly - they included in their 3500, 1900 actions filed by Trump or his Companies. In fact the cases against Trump or one or more of his LITERALLY 500 companies that they found over 3 decades are only 1,450 cases. By company (a misleading measure) that works out to less than 1 case per decade.
Then they broke the cases down further - but not just the ones filed against him (which makes the break out less useful). 1700 were tied to the casinos (1600 of which were collection cases against gamblers, which we know from the article but not the charts - that means only 300 were unrelated to gambling debts, excluding those filings would cut the total number of actions from 3500 to 1900). In total, there were 125 contract disputes and 120 employment related cases (without any breakdown of who filed the cases). The Trump organization currently has over 20,000 employees, and has had how many others over 3 decades?
At the time, 1300 of the cases had an identifiable result (not clear if this was just those filed against Trump or all of them). Trump had won 450 of them to 38 losses. Another 500 had been dismissed (the narrative specifically says 500 of those filed AGAINST Trump, which may imply that these 1300 resolutions are literally related to the 1450 cases filed against him). 175 settlements (not specified who got the settlement).
For comparison they did a similar check on Hillary Clinton from 1993 - 2013 (from first lady through secretary of state - interesting time limits given the open ended search of Trump all the way to 2016), and found she was involved in 900 cases mostly as a defendant (without having 500 companies to her name, but with a third of those filed by federal prisoners). If you consider timing, that means they found Trump and his 500 companies had about 485 cases filed against them per decade, and Hillary had 450 filed against her per decade.
You can re-read the nuance for yourself.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/01/donald-trump-lawsuits-legal-battles/84995854/I find that your accusation of re-writing history is more true about the point you are trying to make than about the claim you are disputing.