The former president had requested a new trial and that the $83.3 million he was ordered to pay Carroll be thrown out.
Topline
A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial—or to throw out the $83.3 million defamation ruling—against writer E. Jean Carroll, who sued Trump twice alleging defamation and sexual assault, marking the latest legal loss for the former president.Key Facts
In the Thursday ruling rejecting the request for a new trial or the judgment to be dismissed, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Trump’s argument was “without merit,” made “conspicuously without success” and “defies common sense.”
Trump argued in the rejected motion that the court “erred in excluding evidence and in instructing the jury on common law malice” and that the more than $18 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages awarded were “excessive and must be remitted.”
In January, a jury determined Trump had to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defaming her after she accused him of sexual assault, adding to the $5 million the jury in a different case ordered Trump to pay her after it found him liable for sexual assault in the 1990s and subsequent defamation.
Robbie Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, told Forbes in a statement they are “pleased with though not surprised by” the court’s decision, adding the award was “entirely reasonable” because of Trump’s continued defamation, “hatred and disdain.
