President Donald Trump’s motion to have a civil sexual assault lawsuit dismissed was rejected by a federal Judge.
The lawsuit in question was filed by E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist, author, and journalist, in November, following New York’s Adult Survivors Act going into effect.
The Act gives individuals one year to file lawsuits relating to sexual misconduct allegations that fall outside the statute of limitations.
Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in the 1990s.
The author also had filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump before the ASA went into effect. In that lawsuit, Carroll claimed Trump falsely dubbed her a liar in response to her claims he raped her and for making disparaging remarks about her physical appearance.
In his motion to dismiss, Trump’s legal team asserts the law violates New York state law on due process, making the Adult Survivors Act unconstitutional.
But in his ruling rejecting Trump’s motion to dismiss, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan announced the law was constitutional. Specifically, Kaplan pointed out an earlier ruling from the New York Court of Appeals.
In that ruling, the New York Court of Appeals states that a claim revival process is only deemed unconstitutional if it violates the due process clause in the state’s constitution.
The criterion for breaking that clause is if the claims revival process is not a “reasonable measure to address injustice.”
Instead, Kaplan insisted the ASA was an “obvious” reasonable meal.
He added that the Act arose from the state acknowledging — and rectifying — the “culture of silence” and “comparatively short” time frames to report sexual assault.
