A divided federal appeals court refused Wednesday to convene its full bench to reconsider an $83 million defamation verdict against President Donald Trump tied to statements about E. Jean Carroll, a magazine advice columnist. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it would not grant an en banc rehearing, a rare procedural step that would have placed the case before all active judges on the Manhattan-based court.
The court’s order rejected Trump’s bid for en banc review of the large defamation award, which followed a separate sequence of litigation in which a jury found Carroll’s claims and then later awarded $83 million for defamation. The decision came months after Trump sought U.S. Supreme Court review of another jury’s decision awarding Carroll $5 million, according to the appeals timeline described by the court.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement that her client was “eager for this case, originally filed in 2019, to be over so that she can finally obtain justice.” Kaplan’s remark came after the 2nd Circuit’s earlier step in the case: a three-judge panel had rejected Trump’s appeal in September, and then an appeals judge asked the rest of the court to rehear the matter with all active judges.
The 2nd Circuit said Wednesday that five judges voted against a rehearing before all the judges while three judges voted in favor, according to the report. Judge Denny Chin, who wrote an opinion explaining the court’s decision, said the filing represented the fourth time the 2nd Circuit had denied an en banc request in the case.
Chin’s opinion traced the dispute back to Carroll’s public account in 2019, when she first asserted in a memoir that Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman store dressing room. Chin also described what he said Trump later argued in response, including Trump’s claims that he had never met her and his characterization of the allegation as false, along with statements made in interviews.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation in November 2019. Trump did not attend a May 2023 trial in the case, but he briefly testified at a second trial in January 2024, after which a jury awarded Carroll $83 million for defamation.
In addressing why the appeals court upheld the verdict, Chin said, “The record showed that Trump made multiple statements over many years accusing Carroll of lying for political and financial gain, and suggesting that Carroll was too unattractive for Trump to have sexually assaulted her.” Chin added that, “As a result of Trump’s statements, Carroll was harassed and humiliated, subjected to death threats, and feared for her physical safety for years,” and he said Trump showed no remorse, continuing attacks during and after the federal trials. Chin also cited Trump’s statement in court proceedings describing continued defamation and included a quotation of Trump’s vow to defame Carroll “a thousand times.”
Judges Steven J. Menashi, Michael H. Park and Debra Ann Livingston voted in favor of rehearing the case en banc, according to the report. In a dissent authored by Menashi, they agreed that the appeals panel that heard the case should have allowed the United States to be substituted for Trump as the defendant after the attorney general certified Trump was acting in the “scope of his office or employment” when the claim arose. They also said Trump should have been able to argue that he was protected by presidential immunity.
The dissent further argued for new proceedings, and Menashi wrote that the dissenting judges believed the case reflected what he described as “a manifest miscarriage of justice,” characterizing the defamation award as “grossly excessive.”