On Tuesday, E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial begins. Carroll sued Donald Trump for defamation after he accused her of lying about sexually abusing her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman’s in the mid-1990s, a claim for which a jury already found him liable last year. Although it was the first of two defamation cases against Trump to be filed, “Carroll I,” as it has been named, was initially delayed from being presented to a jury because of attempts by Trump to have it dismissed on technical legal grounds. But after a tortuous appellate journey, Carroll I survived to see another day. And now it’s ready for trial.
Carroll is seeking $10 million for harm to her reputation, as well as an unspecified amount of punitive damages.
And for E. Jean Carroll, Carroll I, filed in 2019, has become somewhat of a legal lay-up. That’s because the presiding federal judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, ruled in September that because of a jury’s verdict in Carroll’s other defamation case that was filed in 2022 (referred to as “Carroll II”), Trump cannot argue that he did not defame Carroll. In fact, the only thing left now for a jury to decide in Carroll I is how much to award Carroll for the damages she suffered as a result of Trump’s defamation of her in 2019, when he was president. In the interest of full disclosure, I am good friends with Carroll. Regardless of our friendship, my legal analysis is based on the facts and case law.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the two cases:
Carroll I:
Filed by Carroll in November 2019 for defamatory statements made that year by then-President Trump, after Carroll came forward publicly with allegations that he had raped her in the mid-1990s. Because he was president at the time of the defamation and because then-Attorney General William Barr sided with Trump that he was acting within the bounds of his office when he made the defamatory statements, the Barr Justice Department inserted itself into the lawsuit on behalf of Trump,…
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