Trump E. Jean Carroll Case: Appeals Court Shuts Down Trump Effort To Kill Case
A federal appeals court Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump's latest effort to throw out writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against him, ruling against the president's request to have the government step in for him as a party in the case—and putting Trump one step closer to having to pay out $83 million in damages.
Trump is appealing the jury verdict ordering him to pay $83 million for defaming Carroll, based on his attacks against her after she publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.
Trump asked the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to allow the government to swap in for him as a party in the case, alleging that since his defamatory statements were made while he was president, Carroll should be suing the government and not Trump as a private citizen.
A ruling in Trump's favor would have made it much more likely the appeals court would kill the case under the Westfall Act, which gives federal officials some immunity from legal claims brought over their acts in office.
Carroll's attorneys opposed Trump's effort to have the government sub in for him, arguing he can't make such a request after the case has already gone to trial and writing, 'The record, the jury's verdict, and common sense all lead here to only one conclusion – that Trump was serving himself, not the people of the United States, when he viciously defamed Carroll in 2019.'
A three-judge panel at the Second Circuit denied Trump's request, only noting the motion to substitute the U.S. government for Trump as a party in the case was denied and an opinion with the court's full reasoning will follow.
The ruling comes ahead of the appeals court holding oral arguments on the Carroll case on June 24. The court will then decide whether to uphold the jury's verdict, and the $83 million Trump was ordered to pay, or whether to either kill the case entirely or lower the amount Trump needs to pay. Trump or Carroll could then appeal the case to the Supreme Court, though it's unclear whether justices would take up the dispute. Trump will only have to pay Carroll once the appeals process is fully complete. An appeals court has already separately rejected Trump's appeal of Carroll's other lawsuit against him, which resulted in him being found liable for sexual assault and defamation, with a three-judge panel upholding the jury's verdict. The appeals court then denied Trump's request for the full panel of judges to re-hear the case.
The case at the heart of Wednesday's ruling is one of two major verdicts against Trump regarding Carroll. The writer first sued Trump in 2019 for defamation after he attacked her for going public with her allegations against him, claiming Carroll is not 'my type' and forcefully denying her allegations of assault. Carroll then brought a second lawsuit alleging both defamation and sexual assault under New York's Adult Survivors Act. That case ended up going to trial first, resulting in a jury finding Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation—but not rape—and ordering him to pay $5 million in damages. The first defamation case then went to trial in January 2024, resulting in the jury ordering Trump to pay $83 million. The case took so long to go to trial because of the longrunning dispute over whether Trump's defamatory comments were an official act as president, with the case bouncing around through different courts as judges kept punting on the issue of whether the case fell into the government's scope. The Biden administration's Department of Justice in 2023 ultimately stopped arguing that Trump's comments were official acts, based on the ruling against him in the other Carroll case, paving the way for the lawsuit to go to trial.
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