E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump
| Carroll v. Trump | |
|---|---|
| Court | United States District Court for the Southern District of New York |
| Full case name | E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump |
| Docket nos. | 20-cv-07311 22-cv-10016 |
| Verdict |
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| Court membership | |
| Judge sitting | Lewis A. Kaplan |
E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump is the name of two related lawsuits by American author E. Jean Carroll against U.S. President Donald Trump. The two suits resulted in a total of $88.3 million in damages awarded to Carroll; both cases are under appeal. Both cases were related to Carroll's accusation from mid-2019 (during Trump's first term) that he sexually assaulted her in late 1995 or early 1996. Trump denied the allegations, prompting Carroll to sue him for defamation in November 2019 (a.k.a. Carroll I).
In November 2022, Carroll filed her second suit against Trump (a.k.a. Carroll II), renewing her claim of defamation and adding a claim of battery under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law allowing sexual-assault victims to file civil suits beyond expired statutes of limitations. This suit went to trial in April 2023. Evidence included testimony from two friends Carroll spoke to after the alleged incident, a photograph of Carroll with Trump in 1987, testimony from two women who had separately accused Trump of sexual assault, footage from the Trump Access Hollywood tape and his October 2022 deposition. A jury verdict in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and ordered him to pay US$5 million in damages. Trump made an unsuccessful counterclaim and in December 2024, lost his initial appeal. His request for an en banc hearing was rejected in June 2025.
Carroll's accusation against Trump was more severe than the accusations made by other women. Regarding the jury verdict, the judge asked the jury to find if the preponderance of the evidence suggested that Trump raped Carroll under New York's narrow legal definition of rape at that time, denoting forcible penetration with the penis, as alleged by the plaintiff; the jury did not find Trump liable for rape and instead found him liable for a lesser degree of sexual abuse. In July 2023, Judge Kaplan said that the verdict found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word, i.e. not necessarily implying penile penetration. In August 2023, Kaplan dismissed a countersuit and wrote that Carroll's accusation of rape is "substantially true".
In September 2023, Kaplan issued a partial summary judgment regarding Carroll I, finding Trump liable for defamation via his 2019 statements. The jury verdict from the January 2024 trial was $83.3 million in additional damages. To appeal, Trump secured a bond for this amount plus 10 percent.
In December 2024, Trump settled a defamation case with ABC News after anchor George Stephanopoulos incorrectly stated that the jury found Trump liable for rape in the case. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's presidential library and $1 million for his legal fees, as well as issue a public apology.