Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan handed Donald Trump another setback in the courts, asserting that Trump’s lawyers’ latest attempt to forestall a trial on the defamation suit filed by E. Jean Carroll as merely another attempt to delay the trial.
Trump’s team had asked that the trial be put on hold until an appeals court is through considering his previous court loss to Carroll, in which the former President was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. (Carroll has a separate pending claim on defamation that Trump was trying to shelve until after the appeals process ends.)
Oops. “Frivolous” can mean attorneys fees! https://t.co/pC78IJZXcK
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) August 19, 2023
“Mr. Trump’s motion for a stay pending appeal is denied,” Kaplan said, rejecting Trump’s request. “This Court certifies that the appeal itself is frivolous.”
That certification of frivolity on the part of Trump’s legal team caught the eye of U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a University of Virginia-trained lawyer. “Frivolous,” Whitehouse wrote as he shared the story, “can mean attorneys fees!”
Whitehouse alludes to the jeopardy brought on by Trump’s team in filing allegedly frivolous appeals, which allows damages in the case to include the award of attorneys fees to Carroll’s side. In other words, if Trump is found liable again he could be forced to pay not just his own lawyers, but Carroll’s lawyers too, as part of the civil resolution.
A “frivolous” appeal also permits the award of “doubled costs” to the plaintiff. Below is an explanatory description from a case involving Citigroup of a judge “sanctioning a litigant for frivolous litigation, including awarding attorneys’ fees for defending against the frivolous claims.”
Uniform Rule 130-1.1 vests this Court with discretion to award both attorneys’ fees, costs and sanctions as a result of frivolous conduct. Conduct is frivolous if (1) it is completely without merit in law and cannot be supported by a reasonable argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law; (2) it is undertaken primarily to delay or prolong the resolution of the litigation, or to harass or maliciously injure another; or (3) it asserts material factual statements that are false.
