A federal appeals court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s appeal of writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation verdict against the president, leaving him on the hook for the $83 million judgment.
“[W]e conclude that Trump has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable,” the ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
“The record in this case supports the district court’s determination that the ‘the degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented,” the three-judge panel found, referring to the punitive damages award against the president.
Trump’s attorneys had argued the verdict needed to be tossed because it “severely damages the presidency and is a great miscarriage of justice.”
Carroll’s lawyer had told the appeals court it should stand because “the president is not above the law.”
NBC News has reached out to a representative of Trump’s for comment.
Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan said in a statement that, “We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.”
A New York jury returned the verdict in January of last year, awarding Carroll $83.3 million in damages for Trump repeatedly defaming her during his first term in office and in the years that followed — including during the defamation trial.
The amount Trump has to pay has increased in the months since then, thanks to New York’s 9% annual interest rate on such awards.
Trump first alleged Carroll was a liar in 2019 after she went public with a claim that Trump had sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegations and called the claims a “hoax” and a “con job,” and said that Carroll had made up the story to increase sales of a book she had coming out.
Carroll filed two lawsuits against Trump. The first was for defaming her while he was president — the case that led to the $83 million verdict.
While that case was tied up on an earlier appeal, Carroll filed a second case for defamatory comments Trump made after he left the White House, and also for the alleged assault itself, an action that was made possible after New York passed a law that opened a one-year window for adult victims of sexual offenses to file civil suits even if the statute of limitations on their claims had expired — as it had for Carroll.
The jury in that case found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, and awarded her $5 million in damages in May 2023.
Those findings wound up focusing the second trial solely on damages, which Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully challenged in their appeal. They also contended the verdict should be tossed because Trump was protected by presidential immunity when he first made the comments. His initial denial was put out through the White House press office, which also disseminated comments he made to reporters the next day, they noted.
“The two statements on matters of public concern issued through official White House channels fall squarely within the outer perimeter of President Trump’s official responsibilities,” his attorneys argued.
Carroll’s lawyers contended the comments involved Trump’s “personal conduct.”
Trump “was not speaking here about a governmental policy or a function of his responsibilities as President,” they argued in a filing. “He was defaming Carroll because of her revelation that many years before he assumed office, he sexually assaulted her. The defamation at issue concerned quintessentially ‘personal’ conduct.”
They also contended he’d waited too long to raise the immunity defense. Trump attorney Justin Smith told the appeals court judges at a hearing in June that last year’s Supreme Court ruling broadening the scope of presidential immunity shows that the immunity defense is “not waivable.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, countered that the word “waiver” doesn’t even appear in that Supreme Court ruling.
Kaplan also urged the judges not to reduce the jury’s award, which included $11 million for damage to Carroll’s reputation, $7.3 million for emotional harm and other damages, and $65 million in punitive damages.
The punitive award “was not only just, but clearly aimed at the goal of deterring further defamation,” Kaplan argued.
“Throughout the trial, the jury had a front-row seat to Trump’s relentless campaign of malice, including his repeated defamation of Carroll at press conferences he held and in statements he posted on social media while the trial was ongoing,” she said, adding that the verdict shows “that even the richest and most powerful can be held responsible under our legal system.”
The appeals court agreed, rejecting the immunity arguments and finding the high punitive damages award was warranted.
“Given the unique and egregious facts of this case, we conclude that the punitive damages award did not exceed the bounds of reasonableness,” the panel found, saying Trump’s conduct “involved malice and deceit, caused severe emotional injury, and continued over at least a five-year period.”
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also affirmed last year the $5 million verdict in Carroll’s first suit. Trump is appealing that ruling to the Supreme Court.
The president has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations and any wrongdoing in the case.
Source link
