Back to the Trump civil fraud appeal. The opinion(s) are a divided mess. Being a civil case, AG James is free to appeal it to the ultimate NY court of appeals, which she has vowed to do.
Looking at it further, I don't think the NY court of appeals analysis will hold up on further appeal. It doesn't make any sense. On one hand, it says it's an unconstitutional fine or penalty in violation of the 8th Amendment. That's something you find when an award is properly calculated, but the statutory scheme that allows it is over-generous or over-punitive, or as applied to the particular facts and damage award, it's just excessive. It's not something you hold when there are simple errors in the damage calculation.
On the other hand, the ruling says the disgorgement penalty was miscalculated, or relied on two things, the Old Post Office lease and the Ferry Point golf course operating agreement, where fraud wasn't proven or proven adequately. That would have knocked the award down by $195M by the court of appeals' own calculation.
When damages are miscalculated, or reliant on some element that isn't proper or proven, you remand to the trial court for a recalculation or retrial on those issues. But that's obviously not what they did here. They should have either remitted the disgorgement by the $195M or sent it back to Engoron to do so. I don't think that's going to survive further appeal.
Notably, the court of appeals did affirm all other aspects of the judgment, including the injunctive portions where Trump can't own a business chartered in NY.
It's possible that the further appeal undoes that, too, but it seems rather unlikely.