A federal appeals court has refused to overturn the $83 million verdict against Donald Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case — and with that refusal, a legal milestone no other American president has ever reached is now even harder to erase.
The ruling came quietly but carries enormous weight. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for en banc review — meaning the full court refused to reconvene and reconsider the case. The three-judge panel that originally upheld the verdict stays in place, and its findings stand. For Trump and his legal team, the path to escaping the judgment is now narrowing.
How We Got Here
In 2023, a New York jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Carroll, a longtime magazine advice columnist, had publicly accused Trump of the assault years earlier — and Trump responded by calling her a liar, denying the incident ever happened, and attacking her credibility in dozens of public statements over several years.
That second part — the denial campaign — became its own legal case. In a 2024 trial focused solely on Trump’s repeated public denials, the same jury returned an $83.3 million defamation verdict against him. The 2nd Circuit upheld that award on appeal, finding that Trump’s attacks on Carroll were not just denials but an escalating pattern of defamation. The panel found he made his statements “more extreme and frequent as the trial approached” — a five-year campaign, not a one-time comment.
The denial of en banc review means the 2nd Circuit, as a whole, saw no compelling reason to revisit that conclusion. The three-judge ruling now carries the weight of the full court’s implicit endorsement.
Where Things Stand Now
Trump is not currently required to write a check for $83 million. He has posted a $7.4 million bond to cover additional interest that would accrue while he pursues a Supreme Court appeal — a procedural move that keeps him from having to pay the full amount while litigation continues.
His legal team is pressing forward with the Supreme Court challenge on multiple fronts, including a claim of “absolute immunity” — arguing that statements Trump made about Carroll while serving as president are shielded from civil liability. It is a novel legal argument, and one the Supreme Court has not yet agreed to take up. The high court has not indicated whether it will accept the case for review.
If the Supreme Court declines to hear it, or takes it and rules against Trump, the $83 million judgment becomes final and enforceable.
An Unprecedented Legal Record
The Carroll verdict is unlike anything in American presidential history. No other person who has served as President of the United States has ever been found by a jury to be civilly liable for sexual abuse. That distinction now belongs solely to Donald Trump — and two separate rounds of appeals have declined to erase it.
Carroll’s legal team has characterized the appeals court rulings as a full vindication of the jury’s findings. Trump’s team maintains that the case was politically motivated and that the Supreme Court will ultimately correct what they describe as legal errors in how the trial was conducted.
For now, the verdict stands. The appeals are not over — but with the 2nd Circuit’s full court declining to revisit the case, the next move belongs entirely to the Supreme Court. And until that court acts, Donald Trump remains the only former president in American history with an $83 million jury verdict for defamation of a woman a jury found he sexually abused.