Carroll v. Trump
- Lewis Kaplan
- 1:20-cv-07311
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Carroll v. Trump, Judge Kaplan denied Raj Patel’s request to intervene in Jean Carroll’s defamation case.
Raj K. Patel’s request to join the case was denied; the provided text does not indicate any change to the underlying claims of Jean Carroll or Donald J. Trump.
What happened
In Carroll v. Trump, Raj Patel asked to join Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against Donald J. Trump. Patel filed the request without a lawyer and said his claims shared a legal or factual question with Carroll’s case.
Patel cited the rule allowing permissive intervention and referred to defamation, federal tort law, racketeering, honest-services fraud, intellectual property, and other allegations. The provided text does not show that the court addressed the merits of those allegations.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied Patel’s motion to intervene. The provided opinion text is partially garbled and does not clearly state the court’s reasoning.
The detailed version
- Carroll v. Trump · No. 1:20-cv-07311
- Lewis Kaplan
- Oct. 28, 2020
Background
Jean Carroll was the plaintiff and Donald J. Trump, in his personal capacity, was the defendant. Raj K. Patel filed a motion without a lawyer seeking permissive intervention under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b)(1)(B). That rule allows a person to join an existing lawsuit when the person’s claim or defense shares a common legal or factual question with the main case.
Patel stated that his proposed claims had a common question with Carroll’s case concerning defamation and allegedly slanderous statements. He also referred to the Federal Tort Claims Act, racketeering laws, honest-services fraud, intellectual property, and an alleged battery involving sound. The provided text identifies these arguments but does not show that the court evaluated them on their merits.
Ruling
The court denied Patel’s motion for permissive intervention. The ruling was an ancillary civil-procedure decision about whether Patel could join the case; it did not decide the merits of the allegations described in his motion. The provided opinion text is incomplete and garbled in places and does not clearly explain the court’s reasoning. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan entered the order.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.