Carroll v. Trump

687 F.Supp.3d 394

E. Jean CARROLL, Plaintiff, v. Donald J. TRUMP, in his personal capacity, Defendant.

20-cv-7311 (LAK)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

Signed August 18, 2023

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

Alina Habba, Michael T. Madaio, Habba Madaio & Associates LLP, Attorneys for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO STAY

LEWIS A. KAPLAN, District Judge.

A little less than four years ago, writer E. Jean Carroll commenced this defamation lawsuit against then-president Donald Trump for certain statements he made in 2019 shortly after Ms. Carroll publicly accused him of sexually assaulting ("raping") her in the mid 1990s. This case was largely stalled for years due in large part to Mr. Trump's repeated efforts to delay, which are chronicled in the Court's prior decisions.¹ Mr. Trump's latest motion to stay - his fourth such request - is yet another such attempt to delay unduly the resolution of this matter.

After litigating this case for over three years, Mr. Trump, in his motion for summary judgment filed in December 2022, for the first time asserted that he has absolute presidential immunity for his 2019 statements about Ms. Carroll. This Court rejected the argument. It first held that Mr. Trump had waived his absolute presidential immunity defense by failing to plead or otherwise raise it earlier. It denied also, on two independent grounds, Mr. Trump's alternative request to amend his answer to raise the defense now: (1) the proposed amendment would be futile because the presidential immunity defense would be without merit, and (2) Mr. Trump in any case delayed unduly in raising the defense, and granting his request would prejudice Ms. Carroll unfairly.

Mr. Trump filed an interlocutory appeal of that decision. He now seeks to stay this case pending resolution of his appeal. For the reasons stated below, his request is denied.

Facts

The Court assumes familiarity with its prior decisions in this case ("Carroll I") and in a second closely related case ("Carroll II"), which detail the facts and procedural histories of both cases.²

Ms. Carroll Files This Lawsuit In November 2019

In the hours and days immediately after Ms. Carroll first publicly accused Mr. Trump of sexually assaulting ("raping") her in a department store in New York in the mid 1990s, Mr. Trump issued public statements in which he denied the accusation, stated that he did not know and never had met Ms. Carroll, and claimed that she fabricated the accusation for ulterior and improper purposes. Approximately five months later, in November 2019, Ms. Carroll brought this lawsuit alleging that Mr. Trump defamed her in his statements and seeking damages and other relief. The case was filed originally in a state court in New York before being removed to this Court in September 2020 in circumstances discussed previously.

Mr. Trump's Previous Motions To Stay This Case

This motion is Mr. Trump's fourth attempt to stay this case.

He first moved to stay it while it still was in state court, where he moved to stay the proceedings pending a decision by the New York Court of Appeals in a different lawsuit against him.³ The state court denied that motion, and the case was removed to this Court a month later.

Mr. Trump's second and third motions to stay, made before this Court, also were denied. Both were related to a motion by the Department of Justice to substitute the United States for Mr. Trump as the defendant in this case pursuant to the Westfall Act based on the theory that Mr. Trump was an "employee" of the United States within the meaning of the Westfall Act and that he had acted within the scope of his employment as president when he made the allegedly defamatory statements. In October 2020, this Court denied the government's then motion to substitute the United States in place of Mr. Trump.⁴ Both Mr. Trump and the government appealed, and Mr. Trump moved in this Court to stay all proceedings pending appeal. He argued that this Court was "divested of jurisdiction" because its " 'rejection of certification and substitution effectively denied [defendant] the protection afforded by the Westfall Act, a measure designed to immunize covered federal employees not simply from liability, but from suit.' "⁵ The Court denied Mr. Trump's motion to stay without prejudice.⁶ Mr. Trump neither sought a stay from the Second Circuit nor renewed his motion in this Court.

Mr. Trump moved a third time to stay this case in conjunction with a second motion, that one filed by Mr. Trump, to substitute the United States in his place. Both requests came shortly after the Second Circuit's decision on Mr. Trump's and the government's appeal of this Court's Westfall Act decision, in which the Circuit certified the question of the whether Mr. Trump had acted within the scope of his employment to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. This Court denied both motions - the stay motion and Mr. Trump's motion to substitute the United States, and explained:

"As an initial matter, discovery in this case has virtually concluded. Mr. Trump has conducted extensive discovery of the plaintiff, yet produced virtually none himself. The principal open items, as the Court understands it, are the depositions of Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump, scheduled for October 14 and 19, respectively. Completing those depositions - which already have been delayed for years - would impose no undue burden on Mr. Trump, let alone any irreparable injury . . . . Given his conduct so far in this case, Mr. Trump's position regarding the burdens of discovery is inexcusable. On December 10, 2020, he moved for a stay pending appeal. His arguments then in support of that motion were almost identical to those advanced here. This Court denied the motion on September 15, 2021. And since that motion was denied, he has taken discovery against plaintiff when the circumstances were not materially different.

"[A] stay [also] would cause substantial injury to plaintiff. As the Court noted in an earlier opinion in this case, 'defendant's litigation tactics have had a dilatory effect and, indeed, strongly suggest that he is acting out of a strong desire to delay any opportunity plaintiff may have to present her case against him.' Delay is a more serious concern in this case than usual for several reasons. First, the appeal from my order denying substitution already has consumed 20 months from the day it was noticed and it is not over yet. The remaining question has been certified to the D.C. Court of Appeals, a process that reasonably may be expected to be lengthy. Perhaps most significant, both plaintiff and defendant - and perhaps other witnesses - already are of advanced age. The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff's attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong."⁷

Current Status Of This Case

There have been several developments relevant to this case following the Court's October 2022 denial of Mr. Trump's third motion to stay. Most significantly, in November 2022, Ms. Carroll filed a second lawsuit against Mr. Trump in a case now known as "Carroll II" in which she brought two claims. The first was a sexual battery claim under the Adult Survivors Act ("ASA"), a new law enacted by New York in 2022 that created a one-year period within which persons who were sexually assaulted as adults could sue their alleged assaulters even if their claims otherwise would have been untimely. She brought also a defamation claim for a statement Mr. Trump published on social media in 2022 that was substantially similar to his 2019 statements.

By the time Carroll II was filed, discovery in this case had been completed.⁸ The parties submitted a joint pretrial order, which this Court approved, and decided Mr. Trump's motion for summary judgment and both parties' pretrial in limine motions.⁹ This case originally was set for trial on February 6, 2023, and later was adjourned until April 10, 2023. The Court subsequently adjourned the April 10, 2023 trial date sine die given the then still pending certified questions in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on the Westfall Act issue. Following the D.C. court's ruling on the certified questions, a remand of this case by the Second Circuit, and completion of the trial in Carroll II, the Court set a new trial date of January 15, 2024 in this case. At present, the only matter that remains open prior to trial is completion of reply memoranda on the issue of preclusive effect, if any, of the findings in Carroll II in this action.

Carroll II was tried in this Court from April 25, 2023 to May 9, 2023. The jury in that case unanimously determined that Mr. Trump "sexually abused" Ms. Carroll and that he defamed her in his 2022 statement, awarding her $2.02 million for her sexual battery claim and $2.98 million for her defamation claim.¹⁰

Discussion

Legal Standard

The legal standards governing a motion to stay are well settled:

" 'The proponent of a stay bears the burden of establishing its need.' Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 708 [117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945] (1997). Even where irreparable injury might result, a stay is 'not a matter of right.' Virginian Ry. Co., 272 U.S. 658, 672 [47 S.Ct. 222, 71 L.Ed. 463](1926). Rather, it is 'an exercise of judicial discretion,' and '[t]he propriety of its issue is dependent upon the circumstances of the particular case.'

Id. at 672-73 . Yet the Court's discretion is not unguided. Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 [129 S.Ct. 1749, 173 L.Ed.2d 550] (2009). Courts weighing motions to stay consider four factors: '(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (

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