The Supreme Court turned away Donald Trump’s appeal on Monday and left in place the $5 million jury verdict in the case brought by E. Jean Carroll. The ruling keeps the 2023 jury verdict and civil judgment in force after the court declined to hear Trump’s bid to overturn findings that he sexually abused and later defamed her.
Carroll’s Manhattan lawsuit
Carroll first made her allegations in 2019 and filed the lawsuit three years later under a New York state law aimed at assisting survivors of sexual assault from years ago. She alleged that Trump assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in Manhattan in 1996, and the federal case in Manhattan went on to produce the $5 million judgment.
Trump denied the allegations and called Carroll’s claims a "con job" and a "hoax." His legal team told the court in a filing that she waited until he was president to bring the claims so she could "maximize political injury to him and profit for herself."
Lewis Kaplan and the trial evidence
Trump also argued that Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan should not have allowed testimony from Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff. His lawyers said Kaplan should not have let jurors view the "Access Hollywood" tape, either. Those objections went to what the jury was allowed to hear at trial, not to whether Carroll had brought the case under the New York law that let her sue years after the alleged assault.
The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury verdict in a 2024 ruling. It found that the evidence questions Trump raised were not a determining factor in upholding the verdict, leaving the $5 million judgment intact before the case reached the Supreme Court.
Separate Trump appeal
Carroll has a separate defamation claim against Trump that is not at issue in the Supreme Court case. That dispute led to an $83.3 million judgment and is still on appeal, with Trump arguing that the claims should be dismissed on the basis of presidential immunity.
For Carroll, Monday’s refusal keeps the earlier verdict alive without another round of Supreme Court review. For Trump, the challenge to the $5 million case is over at this stage, while the separate $83.3 million dispute continues through the appeals process.
