President Donald Trump has won a $16 million dollar libel settlement from the American Broadcasting Corporation, a Disney company, which agreed to “make a statement of regret.” Trump is liable for sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll in a New York dress shop. The trial judge—a Florida federal District Court judge held a “reasonable viewer…could be misled” by an on-air statement by ABC correspondent George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found liable for rape. But he did not make clear that in New York digital penetration is a sexual assault only—not the crime of rape.

The Florida federal trial judge, Cecilia Altonaga, ruled that a “reasonable juror” could misunderstand the difference, making the correspondent’s statements to Trump false and defamatory. Facing trial under a mistake of law, Disney settled. The landmark 1963 case of New York Times v. Sullivan immunizes such errors—and requires actual malice—the heedless disregard of the truth when the person disparaged is a public figure.