On Feb. 16, Donald Trump was ordered to pay more than $450 million (including interest) by way of a judgment in his civil fraud trial in New York. Resolves Yes if the judgment is affirmed on appeal. Resolves No in all other cases (including one where the judgment is reversed and remanded for a new trial).
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/17/nyregion/trump-civil-cases-millions.html
Seems like there won't be an appeal:
@Schwabilismus That's not what the article means. Trump has failed to obtain an appeal bond, which means that (unless the 5-judge panel mentioned says otherwise), the AG can seek to enforce the judgment (start collecting) while his appeal is still pending. That's a different issue from whether there is an appeal -- nothing here indicates he won't appeal in either case, and the fact that he's seeking and appeal bond indicates that he IS.
Pretend I was born yesterday and I don't know anything about this at all. (mostly true)
If some mechanism says he owes $389 million instaed of $450 million, does this resolve Yes or No.
That would resolve NO -- that would not be affirming the judgment in full. (For the sake of avoiding confusion, however, note that the judgment here is something like $350M + $100M in interest). I think the only mechanism by which the amount of the judgment could be changed would be for the appeals court to reverse/vacate the decision in part and remand the case for a new proceeding or new determination of damages by the trial court, so I don't think there will be ambiguous cases in practice.
Also for clarity: If the judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part, the question would resolve NO, provided that the reversal reopens the question of damages (which I think it would in almost all cases).
@Snarflak Correct. In practice, though, that would never happen. I think the only way the appeals court could change the amount of damages without vacating and remanding for a new determination by the trial court would be for it to do something like rule as a matter of law that some category of damages (e.g. punitive damages) aren't available, which would mean a very large change to the amount of the judgment.
They could convict trump for killing Nicole Simpson and it would stand in NY. But if Trump gets elected, he won’t pay a dime.