A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an $83 million defamation verdict against President Donald Trump, rejecting his bid to overturn the judgment awarded to former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in 2019.
Trump’s lawyers had argued the case should be dismissed, saying it inflicted “severe damage to the presidency” and represented a “great miscarriage of justice.” Carroll’s attorneys countered that no one, including a sitting president, is above the law.
Last year, a Manhattan jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in January 2024 after finding Trump repeatedly defamed her in 2019 – both during and after his presidency – when he denied sexually abusing her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. The amount Trump owes has continued to grow due to New York’s 9% annual interest rate on judgments.
In its ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Pres. Trump failed to provide any legal basis to revisit earlier findings on presidential immunity. The three-judge panel wrote in reference to the punitive damages imposed 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 panel added that: “Trump acted with, at a minimum, reckless disregard for the truth” when he called Carroll a liar and said she’s not his type. The panel said the $18.3 million the jury awarded Carroll in compensatory damages was fair, writing: “After Trump released his statements, which were viewed by between 85.8 to 104 million people, Carroll was instantly and continuously attacked on Twitter and Facebook and in emails. She received thousands of such attacks, including hundreds of death threats.”
Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, welcomed the ruling, saying her client is looking forward to the appeals process coming to an end so “justice will finally be done.”
Carroll first went public in 2019 with allegations that Trump sexually assaulted in the mid-1990s. Trump has consistently denied Carroll’s allegations and any wrongdoing, calling them a “hoax” and accusing Carroll of fabricating the story to promote her book. Carroll went on to file two separate lawsuits — the first, tied to Trump’s statements while in office, led to the $83 million award. The second, made possible under a temporary New York law allowing expired sexual assault claims to proceed, included allegations of the assault itself and defamatory remarks Trump made after leaving office. In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, ordering him to pay Carroll $5 million.
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