The court’s refusal to hear Trump’s appeal ends one route for challenging the Carroll judgment. It also puts fresh focus on the difference between a Supreme Court denial of review and a ruling on the case’s merits.
The U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed Donald Trump’s effort to avoid paying E. Jean Carroll, leaving him obligated to make the reported $5.6 million payment tied to Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation case. The court declined to review a lower-court judgment that had upheld a jury verdict against Trump.
For Carroll, the action preserves a major legal win. For Trump, it closes one avenue of appeal in a case that has produced two separate, high-profile civil judgments — while leaving another Carroll-related case on a different legal track.
The court declined to intervene
The Supreme Court did not issue a lengthy opinion revisiting the evidence or explaining why it denied Trump’s petition. It simply declined to hear the appeal, a common but consequential action that leaves the lower-court ruling in place.
SCOTUSblog reported that there was no noted dissent from the denial. That does not mean the justices endorsed every part of the lower courts’ reasoning. It means fewer than four justices voted to take up the case, which is the threshold generally required for Supreme Court review.
The practical result is straightforward: the judgment upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit remains enforceable, and Trump’s challenge through this appeal has run out.
The case behind the payment
Carroll, a writer and journalist, sued Trump in federal court in New York in 2022. She alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department-store dressing room in 1996 and later defamed her after she publicly described the allegation.
Trump denied Carroll’s account and denied wrongdoing. A civil jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, awarding Carroll $5 million. The 2nd Circuit later upheld that verdict.
The $5.6 million figure cited in reports of the latest Supreme Court development is higher than the original $5 million jury award. The available source material identifies the jury’s verdict as $5 million but does not spell out the calculation behind the higher payment amount. In civil cases, totals can change after judgment because of interest, costs or other post-verdict calculations, but the specific basis for the reported amount should be confirmed in the final enforcement record.
Trump challenged evidence at trial
Trump’s Supreme Court petition focused on evidence the jury was allowed to hear during the trial. According to SCOTUSblog’s account of the filing, Trump argued that Carroll’s lawyers should not have been permitted to introduce testimony from other women who alleged that Trump had assaulted them.
He also objected to the jury hearing the 2005 Access Hollywood recording, in which Trump was heard making comments about grabbing women without consent. Trump’s legal team argued that this material unfairly influenced the verdict.
Carroll’s lawyers countered that the evidence was properly admitted and that, even without the challenged material, the rest of the case supported the jury’s decision. The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal leaves the lower courts’ handling of those questions intact for this case.
A denial is not a merits ruling
The Supreme Court’s move is significant because it ends Trump’s direct effort to overturn this judgment. But it should not be read as a new factual ruling by the nation’s highest court on whether the underlying allegations occurred.
A denial of review is different from a full Supreme Court decision after briefing and oral argument. The court hears only a small fraction of the petitions it receives, often selecting cases that raise broad conflicts among lower courts or major unresolved legal questions.
Here, the jury’s findings and the appellate court’s decision remain the operative legal outcomes. The Supreme Court did not alter the award, order a new trial or issue a precedent-setting opinion on the disputed evidence.
Carroll’s other case still matters
The $5 million verdict is not the only civil judgment involving Trump and Carroll. In a separate defamation case, a jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million after finding Trump liable for additional defamatory statements.
The 2nd Circuit upheld that larger verdict as well. SCOTUSblog reported that Trump was expected to seek Supreme Court review in that separate matter, meaning the justices could still face another petition connected to Carroll’s claims.
The cases are related but legally distinct. The first case involved Carroll’s allegation of sexual abuse and Trump’s 2022 statements; the later case centered on other statements Trump made about Carroll while he was president and afterward.
Why the ruling carries weight
The immediate consequence is financial: Trump remains responsible for the judgment associated with the first Carroll case. The broader consequence is procedural. Years of litigation, a jury trial, appellate review and a Supreme Court petition have not displaced the central result reached in federal court.
Trump and his supporters have consistently criticized the cases and disputed the fairness of the proceedings. Carroll and her legal team have argued that the verdicts show that Trump can be held accountable in court for statements and conduct a jury found unlawful.
Those competing views will continue to shape the political conversation around the litigation. Legally, though, the Supreme Court’s refusal to take this appeal leaves little ambiguity about this stage: the lower-court judgment stands, and the reported $5.6 million payment to Carroll remains due.
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