A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the $83.3 million jury award against President Donald Trump for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. The court rejected his argument that presidential immunity shields him from liability for his 2019 statements denying her allegation of sexual assault. In a unanimous, unsigned opinion, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the jury’s verdict—reached in January 2024 after Carroll’s lawyers urged jurors to stop Trump’s ongoing attacks—was supported by the record and the law.
The panel—Judges Denny Chin, Sarah A. L. Merriam and Maria Araújo Kahn—also rejected Trump’s bid to extend last year’s Supreme Court ruling on criminal immunity for official acts to this civil defamation case. Trump’s comments about Carroll, the court concluded, were not protected “official” conduct and therefore could not be immunized from suit. The 70-page opinion left little doubt: the punitive damages, $65 million of the total, flowed from the jury’s finding that Trump acted with actual malice and persisted in disparaging Carroll even during the trial.
Monday’s ruling is the latest marker in a parallel track of litigation that has dogged Trump since Carroll went public in 2019 with her account of a mid-1990s encounter in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman. A separate jury last year found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for additional defamation in 2022; the Second Circuit upheld that \$5 million award in June. Together, the two cases have established both Trump’s civil liability for the underlying abuse and the steep cost of his public denials.
Trump has not paid Carroll. After the January 2024 verdict, he posted a bond of roughly $91.6 million to cover the judgment during appeal—a standard requirement that accrues interest while appellate courts weigh the case. With Monday’s affirmance, his legal team can ask the full Second Circuit to rehear the case or petition the Supreme Court. Carroll’s counsel, Roberta Kaplan, said the ruling brings the case closer to conclusion.
The court’s opinion states that Trump’s statements were personal, not presidential; the jury was entitled to credit Carroll’s testimony and the evidence of harm to her reputation; and punitive damages were warranted to deter future defamation.
Trump’s lawyers criticized the outcome and signaled potential further appeals. But the Second Circuit’s rejection of the immunity claim narrows his options. The Supreme Court’s immunity decision last year focused on criminal exposure for official acts; Monday’s ruling makes clear that, in the civil context, a president’s public insults about a private accuser are not insulated simply because they were uttered while in office.
For Carroll, the ruling is another validation after years of litigation and public scrutiny. For Trump, it is a reminder that courts will test the boundaries he claims—between public duty and private conduct, and between rhetoric and reputational harm. The path forward likely runs through more briefing and perhaps another stop at the Supreme Court. For now, the judgment stands, interest ticking, as the appeals court put a legal floor under what a jury has already said loudly: the defamation was real, and it was costly.
