On Monday, a federal appeals court in New York upheld President Donald Trump’s $83.3 million defamation judgment against former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll from 2019.
“Trump has failed to identify any grounds for reconsidering our prior ruling on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court made no errors in any of the challenged rulings, and that the jury’s damages awards were fair and reasonable,” the opinion stated.
Last year, Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, for defaming her in 2019 after denying sexually abusing her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
On Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s claim that his statements about Carroll were protected by presidential immunity. The appeals court also rejected Trump’s claim that the jury’s damages were excessive.
The three-judge panel ruled that “Trump acted with, at a minimum, reckless disregard for the truth” when he called Carroll a liar and said she is not his type. The panel ruled that Carroll’s compensatory damages award of $18.3 million was fair.
“After Trump made his statements, which were seen by between 85.8 and 104 million people, Carroll was immediately and relentlessly attacked on Twitter, Facebook, and via email. “She received thousands of such attacks, including hundreds of death threats,” the opinion stated.
The panel also rejected Trump’s argument that the $65 million punitive damages award was excessive.
“There was ample evidence that Trump was recklessly indifferent to Carroll’s health and safety,” according to the statement. “Moreover, Trump’s attacks against Carroll were not isolated; rather, they continued throughout the pendency of the nearly five-year litigation and became more extreme and frequent as the trial approached.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement after the ruling that the appeal court confirmed that “E. Jean Carroll was telling the truth, and that President Donald Trump was not.”
“The Court also upheld the $83.3 million award of damages because, among other things … she ‘was subjected to a multitude of death threats and other threats of physical injury,'” according to the statement.” “We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.”
In 2023, a jury in a separate trial found Trump liable for the attack and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages for battery and defamation in a 2022 social media post in which she was referred to as “a hoax and a lie.”
The same court of appeals denied his appeal of the judgment.
