A New York federal judge rejected former US President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial or judgment in his favor on Thursday in the defamation case won by E. Jean Carroll. Trump challenged the $83.3 million jury verdict against him—which includes $18.3 million in compensatory and $65 million in punitive damages—but Judge Lewis Kaplan found his motion “without merit.”
This is not Trump’s first challenge to the verdict. He previously alleged that Kaplan should have recused himself because of a conflict of interest.
In Thursday’s order, Kaplan summarily dismissed some of Trump’s arguments but addressed others in more detail. Trump had argued that the compensatory damages were excessive and the punitive damages unconstitutional. Kaplan disagreed and detailed the harms to Carroll that Trump had caused:
Mr. Trump’s malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people. They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll’s health and safety. The jury was entitled to conclude that Mr. Trump derailed the career, reputation, and emotional well-being of one of America’s most successful and prominent advice columnists and authors — to which she testified repeatedly — and award her $18.3 million in compensatory damages.
Kaplan then pointed to other defamation cases awarding similar amounts and concluded that this verdict was “far from a historical anomaly in New York, before even considering the unique scale of the defamation at hand.” The judge also considered the nature of Trump’s statements, the reach of his audience, and his disruptive behavior at trial—which, taken together, provided enough support for the punitive damages in this case.
Trump also argued for a higher burden of proof for punitive damages, complaining that “preponderance of the evidence,” which means more likely than not, is too light. In this case, Kaplan told the jury that it could award punitive damages if it found that Trump more likely than not had ill will towards Carroll when he made defamatory statements about her. The judge rejected Trump’s request to impose a higher standard.
The next step for Trump is to appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; he has already given notice that he will.
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