Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a scathing opinion Thursday afternoon, ripping apart former President Donald Trump's legal argument to avoid paying E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million.
A New York jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation against Carroll in May 2023. Carroll was initially awarded $5 million. However, the presidential front-runner later called Carroll “crazy” and a “liar” leading to further civil damages against Trump, including $7.3 million in emotional harm, $11 million in “reputational repair” and $65 million in punitive damages.
In his opinion, Kaplan wrote:
Mr. Trump's argument is entirely without merit both as a matter of law and as a matter of fact for all of the reasons articulated in Ms. Carroll's memorandum of law in opposition to his motion. Among other things, it ignores the fact that, as the jury and/or the Court concluded, Mr. Trump's…statements were false, defamatory, and made with both actual and common law malice. It ignores the fact that those defamatory statements were viewed between at least 85 to 104 million times…It ignores as well the fact that the jury was entitled to believe Ms. Carroll's testimony as to the impact of the…statements on her. And it ignores the lack of any persuasive legal authority supporting Mr. Trump's contention. Indeed, the law is clear that when competing theories and evidence are presented at trial, the issue of causation ultimately is one for the jury, which the Court should not ordinarily disturb.
In short, the argument — which Mr. Trump previously made to the the jury, conspicuously without success, and which defies common sense — does not warrant dismissal as a matter of law.
Kaplan ended on a blistering note: “Accordingly, Mr. Trump's motions for a new trial and for a judgment as a matter of law are DENIED.”
Trump's appeal before New York's Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit remains pending.
In 2019, Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a dressing room at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s.
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