Carroll v. Trump

683 F.Supp.3d 302

E. Jean CARROLL, Plaintiff, v. Donald J. TRUMP, Defendant.

22-cv-10016 (LAK)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

Signed July 19, 2023

Roberta Kaplan, Joshua Matz, Shawn Crowley, Matthew Craig, Trevor Morrison, Michael Ferrara, Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, Attorneys for Plaintiff.

Joseph Tacopina, Matthew G. DeOreo, Chad Derek Seigel, Tacopina Seigsl & DeOreo, P.C., Alina Habba, Michael T. Madaio, Habba Madaio & Associates LLP, Attorneys for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION DENYING DEFENDANT'S RULE 59 MOTION

Lewis A. Kaplan, District Judge.

In 2019, E. Jean Carroll first publicly claimed that businessman Donald J. Trump, as he then was, sexually assaulted ("raped") her in the mid-1990s. Mr. Trump responded almost immediately by charging that Ms. Carroll's claim was entirely false, that no such thing ever had happened, and that Ms. Carroll falsely accused Mr. Trump for ulterior and improper purposes. He repeated that contention in 2022 and yet again more recently. Ms. Carroll consequently sued Mr. Trump twice.

Ms. Carroll's first lawsuit ("Carroll I"), commenced in 2019, alleges that Mr. Trump's 2019 statements were defamatory. While that case was delayed for years for reasons that need not be recapitulated here, it now is scheduled for trial in January 2024.

This, the second case ("Carroll II"), also contains a defamation claim, albeit one based on Mr. Trump's comparable 2022 statement. But Carroll II made an additional claim - one for damages for the sexual assault. That claim could not have been made in 2019 because the statute of limitations almost doubtless would have expired long before. But the claim was made possible in 2022 by the enactment that year of New York's Adult Survivors Act (the "ASA"), which temporarily revived the ability of persons who were sexually assaulted as adults to sue their alleged assaulters despite the fact that an earlier statute of limitations had run out.

This case, Carroll II, was tried in April and May 2023. Ms. Carroll contended that Mr. Trump had assaulted her in a dressing room at a New York department store where, among other things, he forcibly penetrated her vagina with his fingers and his penis. She testified in person for most of three days and was cross-examined intensively. Her sexual assault claim was corroborated by two "outcry" witnesses in whom Ms. Carroll had confided shortly after the attack, and was supported by six other fact witnesses. Mr. Trump's defense - based exclusively on an attempt to discredit Ms. Carroll and her other witnesses - in substance was that no assault ever had occurred, that he did not even know Ms. Carroll, and that her accusations were a "Hoax." Mr. Trump, however, did not testify in person or even attend the trial despite ample opportunity to do so.

The jury's unanimous verdict in Carroll II was almost entirely in favor of Ms. Carroll. The only point on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proved that Mr. Trump had "raped" her within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law - a section that provides that the label "rape" as used in criminal prosecutions in New York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called "rape" under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled "sexual abuse."¹

As is shown in the following notes, the definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of "rape" in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries,² in some federal and state criminal statutes,³ and elsewhere.⁴ The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was "raped" within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump "raped" her as many people commonly understand the word "rape." Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.

So why does this matter? It matters because Mr. Trump now contends that the jury's $2 million compensatory damages award for Ms. Carroll's sexual assault claim was excessive because the jury concluded that he had not "raped" Ms. Carroll.⁵ Its verdict, he says, could have been based upon no more than "groping of [Ms. Carroll's] breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape."⁶ And while Mr. Trump is right that a $2 million award for such groping alone could well be regarded as excessive, that undermines rather than supports his argument. His argument is entirely unpersuasive.

This jury did not award Ms. Carroll more than $2 million for groping her breasts through her clothing, wrongful as that might have been. There was no evidence at all of such behavior. Instead, the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll's vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm. Mr. Trump's argument therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury's verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of "rape" to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump.

There is no basis for disturbing the jury's sexual assault damages. And Mr. Trump's arguments with respect to the defamation damages are no stronger.

Facts

The Evidence at Trial

Ms. Carroll's case in chief constituted all of the evidence at trial. Mr. Trump neither testified nor called any witnesses. Apart from portions of his deposition that came in on Ms. Carroll's case, there was no defense evidence at all. The defense consisted entirely of (1) an attempt to discredit Ms. Carroll's proof on cross-examination, and (2) Mr. Trump's testimony during his deposition that Ms. Carroll's account of the alleged events at the department store was a hoax.

Sexual Battery

Liability

The principal evidence as to Mr. Trump's liability for the sexual assault was the testimony of Ms. Carroll, of the two "outcry" witnesses and of two other women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Mr. Trump, the so-called Access Hollywood video, and Mr. Trump's remarkable comments about that video during his deposition.

Ms. Carroll

In her first public accusation of sexual assault - "rape" - against Mr. Trump, which was published in June 2019 as an excerpt of her then-forthcoming book, Ms. Carroll described the assault in relevant part as follows:

"The moment the dressing-room door [(at Bergdorf Goodman, a department store in New York)] is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips. I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights . . . . The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I'm not certain — inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle.⁷

At trial, Ms. Carroll testified:

• "He [(Mr. Trump)] immediately shut the [(dressing room)] door and shoved me up against the wall and shoved me so hard my head banged."

• "I pushed him back, and he thrust me back against the wall again, banging my head again."

• "He put his shoulder against me and hold [sic] me against the wall."

• "I remember him being -- he was very large, and his whole weight came against my chest and held me up there, and he leaned down and pulled down my tights."

• "I was pushing him back . . . . I pushed him back. This arm was pinned down. This arm had my purse. Trying to get him back."

• "His head was beside mine breathing. First, he put his mouth against me."

• "[I was] [s]tamping and trying to wiggle out from under him. But he had pulled down my tights and his hand went -- his fingers went into my vagina, which was extremely painful, extremely painful. It was a horrible feeling because he curved, he put his hand inside of me and curved his finger. As I'm sitting here today, I can still feel it."

• "Then he inserted his penis."

• "He was against me, his whole shoulder -- I couldn't see anything. I couldn't see anything that was happening. But I could certainly feel it. I could certainly feel that pain in the finger jamming up."⁸

After a day and a half of direct testimony, Ms. Carroll was subjected to a lengthy cross examination during which she testified:

"Q. It's your story that at some point you felt his penis inside of you?

A. Yes.

Q. But before that, it's your sworn testimony that you felt his fingers, what you said was rummaging around your vagina?

A. It's an unforgettable feeling.

Q. Now, when you say rummaging around your vagina, that's different than inserting a finger inside your vagina.

A. At first he rummaged around and then he put his finger inside me.

Q. In your book you wrote that he was forcing his fingers around my private area and then thrust his penis halfway completely, I'm not certain, inside me. Is that accurate?

A. Yes."⁹

The Outcry Witnesses

Ms. Carroll confided in two of her friends, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin (the "outcry" witnesses), about the attack shortly after it occurred. Almost immediately after Ms. Carroll escaped from Mr. Trump and exited the store, she called Ms. Birnbach. Ms. Carroll testified that during that call:

"A. I said, you are not going to believe what just happened. I just needed to tell her. I said I met Donald Trump in Bergdorf's. We went lingerie shopping and I was so dumb I walked in a dressing room and he pulled down my tights."

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