Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
Years ago, as a young prosecutor, I won a sexual assault case and the survivor in that case wrote to the court saying “I know Mr. Wu says we won the case but it doesn’t feel that way to me.” I’ve always remembered those words and they resonated with me upon hearing that a jury had awarded writer E. Jean Carroll a total of $83.3 million dollars in her second defamation case against former President Donald J. Trump.
It resonated because the real message in their verdict is that each and every time Trump defamed her by calling her a liar, or saying he would not have raped her because she wasn’t his type, or disparaged her motives in coming forward, he was abusing her again. Each and every instance demonstrated Trump’s belief that he was entitled to do whatever he wanted to her because he was a rich and powerful man.
Although damages do sometimes get reduced on appeal, this one will not. The damages were broken down into compensatory damages and punitive damages and each category is legally sound. Compensatory damages are meant to “compensate” for so-called “out-of-pocket” expenses caused by the defendant to the plaintiff. Here the total amount in compensatory damages was $18.3 million which was broken down into $11 million for reputation repair and $7.3 million for emotional harm.