Summary of the Case
Recently, one of the former contestants of Donald Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice” Summer Zervos, filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for defamation.
Namely, the plaintiff had previously filed a lawsuit against Trump for sexual assault, which happened during the election campaign period.
Summer Zervos brought a sexual assault case to the New York State Supreme Court against Trump in October 2016. In her case, the plaintiff stated that Trump “had kissed and groped her without her consent”. After these accusations were made public, Mr. Trump stated on several occasions that the plaintiff (as the other women with similar accusations) was lying and that the assault was fully invented by the plaintiff herself “to get attention”.
This is the exact reason which motivated Zervos to file a new lawsuit against Trump only few days before he entered the White House. Also, after seeing the ‘Access Hollywood’ story, Zervos was enraged by Trump’s following negation of such behavior, giving her more drive to publicly talk about her experiences. Since the case involves an incident that happened before Trump’s taking office, the government official immunity doesn’t apply.
In the lawsuit, it is stated that “Donald Trump lied again, and again, and again, and again. In doing so, he used his national and international bully pulpit to make false factual statements to denigrate and verbally attack Ms. Zervos”. By doing so, Mr. Trump is considered to have subjected Zervos “to threats of violence, economic harm, and reputational damage”.
In the gist of the case, Summer Zervos is suing Donald Trump for emotional harm and economic damages, which account for the defamation case. Nonetheless, the facts of the case must undergo certain evaluations according to which the results of the case will be decided.
Legal Questions
Given the facts of the case, some of the legal questions that may be raised are the manner in which the court or the plaintiff could prove that Donald Trump was lying. What would be a legal and credible way of proving Trump’s dishonesty?
Moreover, what is the plaintiff’s level of public involvement? In other words, can we identify Summer Zervos as any form of public figure?
Other than that, would the impeachment be immediate if the case advanced?
And finally, there would definitely be a lot of questions regarding the discretion of court officials, and how inclined would they be to rule the case in President’s Trump advantage? This could be an issue, especially recognizing Trump’s leadership character as being fairly impulsive if not satisfied.
Relevant Doctrine
The doctrine that applies is the Plaintiff’s case for Defamation (Slander), Defamation being the category of law.
In order for a case to identify as slander, it must be publicly expressed as a statement of fact, of and concerning the plaintiff, and has to include defamatory content. Moreover, the slander has to false and cause actual injury or damage.
The six categories of the plaintiff’s case for slander are: publication, identification, defamation, fault, falsity and damage. In order to win the case, the plaintiff must be able to prove all of these in the court.
Publication
In order to prove publication, the statement must be heard by a third party. Since Donald Trump was a public figure before he became a public official, most of his interactions were done through different media outlets. To add, the statements given in the case were made in press conferences, which automatically confirms their publication.
Identification
Although in the portion about identification, it is required that at least one person reasonably believes that the slander is regarding the plaintiff. In this case, Summer Zervos’ name was directly mention in some of the statements, which is a proof itself.
Defamation
To prove defamation in court, the plaintiff must be able to prove that a respectable and a substantial minority of the community thinks less of her or that shows hatred toward her. Additionally, if the plaintiff experienced loss of jobs or any damage to her profession, the defamation is automatically proven. Taking into account Mr. Trump’s powerful and influential position in the public, it can be seen how a substantial and respectable part of a community might think less of Zervos after hearing the claims made by Trump.
Fault
To prove fault, the court must first establish whether Zervos has to prove negligence or actual malice, depending on her level of involvement in the public eye. Considering Zervos participation in the media, she is considered to be a limited purpose public figure. Limited purpose public figures usually enter the public sphere by being a part of a controversy for a limited amount of time, which grants them certain level of access to the media.
Hence, Zervos must be able to prove actual malice to the court in order to win the case. Actual malice is defined as the knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. On the other side, Donald Trump as the defendant only has to have one good defense in order for the case to be dropped.
Falsity
If the statement given is not substantially true, it is considered to prove falsity. In Zervos’ case, Trump repeatedly said that the plaintiff was lying. In the article, Zervos’ lawyer says that they have conducted a polygraph test to prove that the plaintiff was telling the truth. Consequently, this would lead to a logical conclusion that Trump was, indeed, lying. Nevertheless, this should still be further proven in court proceedings.
Damage
The very core of the alleged accusations made by Zervos is the emotional and economic damage that the defamation caused her. According to the facts from the case, this would fall under the category of punitive damages, which would result in punishing the defendant. Furthermore, Zervos’ lawyer also stated that “the purpose of the lawsuit was not financial, but […] to get Mr. Trump to admit that he lied”.
Conclusion
Through analyzing the case, I think that Zervos has a strong case against Donald Trump, and that she could be able to prove slander. Some of the legal questions raised can be answered through the analysis of the elements of the Plaintiff’s case for Slander, and some would be answered if the case moved forward in the court.
Some of the challenges might be the power and influence possessed by President Trump, as well as the financial power which he could utilize for his defense team. I am interested to see further development of the case, and if it gets to the court, its final result.
It was interesting to individually analyze a real-life case, especially with this amount of complexity due to the position of the defendant and his relationship to the plaintiff. This case helped me gain more skillful and focused thinking about doctrines, and understanding the hierarchy of different categories of media law. Also, I think that this improved by ability to take different facts into consideration that might be relevant to the case, and the manner in which different circumstances would influence the outcome of the case as well.
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