Trump $83-Million Carroll-Defamation Verdict Survives Appeal
Carroll claims Trump assaulted her in the 1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and then defamed her by calling her a liar when she went public with her claims in 2019.
A US appeals court in Manhattan left intact the $83.3 million penalty against President Donald Trump in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit, rejecting his attempt to overturn the jury’s verdict.
A unanimous decision Monday by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals found the trial judge handled the case properly and that the damages were reasonable “in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts” of the lawsuit, which was filed after Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault.
Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, claims Trump assaulted her in the 1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and then defamed her by calling her a liar when she went public with her claims in 2019. A New York jury issued the penalty in January 2024 following a trial in which Trump took the witness stand and then stormed out during closing arguments.
Carroll filed two lawsuits against Trump and won both. The $83.3 million verdict stemmed from her lawsuit alleging Trump defamed her by repeatedly calling her a liar. Another suit was filed under a temporary New York law that allowed victims of decades-old sexual assaults to file civil suits for damages against their alleged attackers, resulting in a $5 million penalty.
In a statement, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said the appeals court had concluded “that E. Jean Carroll was telling the truth, and that President Donald Trump was not.”
“We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done,” Kaplan said.
Monday’s decision comes as Trump has indicated he will ask the US Supreme Court to overturn the $5 million verdict, which was affirmed by the same appeals court. Trump is likely to challenge the new appeals court decision as well.
The White House referred a request to comment to Trump’s personal lawyer. Michael Madaio, a lawyer for Trump, didn’t immediately return a voicemail seeking comment about the circuit’s decision.
While Trump has lost his Carroll appeals, he has had some success in others. The president scored a significant victory in an unrelated civil fraud lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general, after an intermediate state appellate court threw out a nearly half-billion verdict against him for inflating the value of his assets to get better terms on loans. Trump has appealed anyway because the court upheld a finding of liability against him.
In the Carroll ruling on Monday, the court said it had already rejected Trump’s claim he had presidential immunity in the other Carroll case and that it was doing so again. The panel rejected his renewed claim that the US Supreme Court’s sweeping 2024 ruling that presidents have at least some immunity from criminal charges warranted reconsideration of the defamation verdict.
Trump’s lawyers had also argued that the trial judge in Manhattan had erred by granting Carroll partial summary judgment, or a ruling before trial. The appeals court rejected all of those arguments as well.
The panel noted many tense moments during the trial, including when Trump “made several disruptive comments and gestures in front of the judge and jury” while Carroll was testifying.
Carroll testified Trump shattered her reputation and put her life at risk when he falsely claimed the assault never took place, accused her of fabricating the attack to sell a book and said she wasn’t his “type.” Trump’s statements unleashed waves of online abuse and threats by his followers, she told the jury.
“There was ample evidence that Trump was recklessly indifferent to Carroll’s health and safety,” the appeals court said. “Carroll was subjected to ongoing and prolific harassment as a result of these statements, including a multitude of death threats and other threats of physical injury.”
The panel declined to fault the trial judge for striking a portion of Trump’s own testimony after the president went beyond the “yes or no” response to a question that his lawyer had agreed to.
Carroll’s lawyer had asked the jury for at least $24 million in compensatory damages and an unspecified but significant amount in punitive damages to stop Trump from continuing to defame her. While the compensatory damages were less than she wanted, it was the $65 million in punitive damages that ultimately showed the strength of her case.
