Appeals Court Upholds $83 Million Judgment Against Trump for Defaming E. Jean Carroll
Benjamin Weiser The New York Times
President Donald Trump. (photo: MSNBC)
The judges rejected President Trump’s argument that the Supreme Court’s decision extending presidential immunity should shield him from liability for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.
The court also rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that the Supreme Court’s decision last year affording presidential immunity for official acts barred a finding of liability in Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit.
The unsigned ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan was unanimous.
The president had assailed Ms. Carroll after she accused him of the assault, continuing his verbal attacks on her on social media, at news conferences and even during the trial, during which Ms. Carroll’s lawyers had urged the jury to impose a large award in order to stop him.
A large portion of the verdict — $65 million — consisted of punitive damages after the jury found Mr. Trump had acted with malice.
In December, a different three-judge panel of the Second Circuit unanimously upheld a separate civil verdict Ms. Carroll won against Mr. Trump in 2023. In that case, a jury awarded her $5 million in damages after finding him liable for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and defaming her in statements he made in 2022, after he was out of office.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers have indicated that he will ask the Supreme Court to review the jury’s $5 million verdict and liability finding. On Monday, the president’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Second Circuit’s upholding of Ms. Carroll’s other, larger verdict against Mr. Trump.
Monday’s unsigned 70-page ruling was issued by Judges Denny Chin, Sarah A. L. Merriam and Maria Araújo Kahn. Judge Chin was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama; Judges Merriam and Kahn were appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
