Writer E. Jean Carroll arrives at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where former U.S. President Donald Trump will arrive to ask a federal appeals court to overturn a $5 million jury verdict finding him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her, who accused Trump of raping her nearly three decades ago, in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 6, 2024.
Adam Gray | Reuters
A federal appeals court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump‘s bid to overturn a jury verdict ordering him to pay $83.3 million for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
The ruling from a trio of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld that verdict, which Trump argued was both excessive and invalid following a Supreme Court decision that expanded his presidential immunity.
The panel held that Trump “has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity.”
The judges also ruled that a lower federal court “did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable.”
The decision came less than a week after Trump’s lawyers signaled they will soon ask the Supreme Court to overturn a jury verdict in a second civil case Carroll had filed against the president, for which she has been awarded $5 million.
Both lawsuits accused Trump of defaming Carroll in statements denying her claim that he raped her in the mid-1990s in the Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman.
The jury in Carroll’s second case, known as Carroll II, found after a spring 2023 trial that Trump sexually abused the writer in 1996 and defamed her more than two decades later.
In his appeal of the first case, known as Carroll I — which was filed first but went to trial second — Trump had argued that a lower court was wrong to bar his lawyers from relitigating whether his statements about Carroll were true or false.
In Monday’s ruling, the appellate judges disagreed.
While Carroll I centered on claims Trump made in 2019 and Carroll II focused on claims he made in 2022, “the statements were identical in material respects because both accused Carroll of fabricating the sexual assault allegations for improper purposes,” they wrote.
The judges added, “The jury in Carroll II decided that Carroll was telling the truth.”
They also rejected Trump’s argument that a Supreme Court decision in July 2024 — which granted former presidents presumptive immunity for “official acts” and other protections — cast doubt on the 2nd Circuit’s prior dismissal of his immunity claims.
Trump “submits that [the Supreme Court case, Trump v. United States,] represents a sufficient intervening change of law and that enforcing our prior decision on immunity would work a manifest injustice in light of that change.”
“We are not persuaded,” the judges wrote.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, celebrated the ruling, telling CNBC in a statement, “We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.”
The White House referred CNBC to Trump’s personal lawyers in the case, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The panel who delivered Monday’s ruling comprised two judges appointed by former President Joe Biden and one judge picked by former President Barack Obama.
