I can understand the argument that duee to corporate executions being rare, that Gawker case is exceptional.
I don't really see it as an argument for lower damages for Gawker though, more of an argument that, yeah, we should be more willing to axe corporations if they keep breaking laws.
The reason we don't do this as a culture (in US jurisprudence), is that the management of the company doesn't greatly suffer when the company is destroyed. All the people who didn't have any impact on the wrongdoing that did their work legally and well are out of work. As are the suppliers, affiliates, and partners. Those with stock in publicly traded companies, from grandpa who retired last year but invested when the company was young and doing good things to your hedge fund jackasses suffer as well. Killing a company places a lot of harm on a lot of unrelated people.
Meinwhile, the administration filed for bankruptcy, sells the company, and ends up with a golden parachute of a few dozen million and plays more golf than they did before.
Damaging a company's future profits are usually how legal remedies are done to ensure appropriate damage is done without harming others, fees that are large enough to cripple the company's ability to effectively grow their assets, but not so much as to cause a cascade of damage down the line. A living company can be made an example of, watched for changing their progress, and face another suit if they break from the ruling. A dead company just makes a lot of unemployed people and nothing really is learned aside from having a really good billionaire on your side backing your company.
And that right there, is a flaw in the system.
Upper management should be responsible for the company.
And problem with using appropriate damages to company profits, is that it does not seem to work, because companies know they are fairly insulated from any lawsuits both by regulatory capture, and simply outspending any would be litigators.
Yet, if upper management were directly responsible for corporate actions that would destroy our limitations on seizure of assets and lead us back to situations like debtor's prisons (which is why the LLC and corporate protections were instituted in the first place). If you can take my house, personal finances, and whatever else I got in my net worth for a fault of my company that might seem like karmic justice, but in reality it is very abusable and the 1740s thru 1890s saw so many nightmare scenarios that most of the anglosphere pushed away from that full force.
Also, where do you limit the "administration"? If I own 20% of a company through stock, but have no personal interest in the stake of a publicly traded company am I culpable? What if I have one share as part of my 401k? Is it only the CEO and CFO? or does it trickle down to other management offices that may have done their fiduciary duty? When is it wrongdoing? When harm happens to a customer or bystander or when someone takes action that deliberately will do good by the customer but not fulfill their bondservice requirements?
It's suuuuper easy to go "DAMN THE MAN!" as far as these cases go. But in reality the reason why there aren't better ways to go after management is because identifying who is actually responsible is often murky and problematic.
I'm not suggesting making them liable for simply being bad managers and tanking a company through poor business decisions.
But if those business decisions include not following the law, then some level of responsibility is in order.
I'm not going to pretend that this is a simply issue.
It is not.
But clearly the defacto state of large corporations being above the law is not a desireable one, and awarding small fine is not working.
Eschewing limited liability would crash our entire economy in a matter of months.
I believe there is room to make the limited liability limited (instead of non existent).
I don't expect, or want, for people to just declare CEO's/managers/stock holders to be liable to anything corporates do.
But i would wish for exploring making the limited liability slightly more limited in egrecious cases (also make stockholders more capable of holding CEO's and other upper management responsible for the stockholders).
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
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I can understand the argument that duee to corporate executions being rare, that Gawker case is exceptional.
I don't really see it as an argument for lower damages for Gawker though, more of an argument that, yeah, we should be more willing to axe corporations if they keep breaking laws.
The reason we don't do this as a culture (in US jurisprudence), is that the management of the company doesn't greatly suffer when the company is destroyed. All the people who didn't have any impact on the wrongdoing that did their work legally and well are out of work. As are the suppliers, affiliates, and partners. Those with stock in publicly traded companies, from grandpa who retired last year but invested when the company was young and doing good things to your hedge fund jackasses suffer as well. Killing a company places a lot of harm on a lot of unrelated people.
Meinwhile, the administration filed for bankruptcy, sells the company, and ends up with a golden parachute of a few dozen million and plays more golf than they did before.
Damaging a company's future profits are usually how legal remedies are done to ensure appropriate damage is done without harming others, fees that are large enough to cripple the company's ability to effectively grow their assets, but not so much as to cause a cascade of damage down the line. A living company can be made an example of, watched for changing their progress, and face another suit if they break from the ruling. A dead company just makes a lot of unemployed people and nothing really is learned aside from having a really good billionaire on your side backing your company.
And that right there, is a flaw in the system.
Upper management should be responsible for the company.
And problem with using appropriate damages to company profits, is that it does not seem to work, because companies know they are fairly insulated from any lawsuits both by regulatory capture, and simply outspending any would be litigators.
Yet, if upper management were directly responsible for corporate actions that would destroy our limitations on seizure of assets and lead us back to situations like debtor's prisons (which is why the LLC and corporate protections were instituted in the first place). If you can take my house, personal finances, and whatever else I got in my net worth for a fault of my company that might seem like karmic justice, but in reality it is very abusable and the 1740s thru 1890s saw so many nightmare scenarios that most of the anglosphere pushed away from that full force.
Also, where do you limit the "administration"? If I own 20% of a company through stock, but have no personal interest in the stake of a publicly traded company am I culpable? What if I have one share as part of my 401k? Is it only the CEO and CFO? or does it trickle down to other management offices that may have done their fiduciary duty? When is it wrongdoing? When harm happens to a customer or bystander or when someone takes action that deliberately will do good by the customer but not fulfill their bondservice requirements?
It's suuuuper easy to go "DAMN THE MAN!" as far as these cases go. But in reality the reason why there aren't better ways to go after management is because identifying who is actually responsible is often murky and problematic.
I'm not suggesting making them liable for simply being bad managers and tanking a company through poor business decisions.
But if those business decisions include not following the law, then some level of responsibility is in order.
I'm not going to pretend that this is a simply issue.
It is not.
But clearly the defacto state of large corporations being above the law is not a desireable one, and awarding small fine is not working.
Eschewing limited liability would crash our entire economy in a matter of months.
I believe there is room to make the limited liability limited (instead of non existent).
I don't expect, or want, for people to just declare CEO's/managers/stock holders to be liable to anything corporates do.
But i would wish for exploring making the limited liability slightly more limited in egrecious cases (also make stockholders more capable of holding CEO's and other upper management responsible for the stockholders).
That already exists within the current legal framework when such folk break their fiduciary duty. That's what people like Bernie Madoff could have their personal funds seized when they didn't uphold their guarentees to their creditors. That same process can't apply to other forms of legal wrongdoing because literally every possible thing that could go wrong could destroy your income.
Someone slips and falls on a wet floor in your restaurant? You get sued and probably lose the ~20k in savings you have as an average business owner, and then goes your house and stuff to make the financial payments needed to cover those medical expenses. LLC makes it so the company shoulders both the burden and risk, along with all of those who guarantee the company into being (cosigners, investors, etc up to the value of their buy in). Without that no one could operate a company without constant fear of losing everything due to negligence, which would crush the economy in a heartbeat and turn into the 1750s financially in a matter of months.
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
This is ridiculous. So, in your mind, if Warren Buffet slanders a man, he should have to pay 10,000x more in damages/punitives than a poor man who does the same? Can you not see the obvious constitutional issues here?
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
This is ridiculous. So, in your mind, if Warren Buffet slanders a man, he should have to pay 10,000x more in damages/punitives than a poor man who does the same? Can you not see the obvious constitutional issues here?
Yes. Because if you fine him like the poor man, then how is he incentivized to not do the act again?
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
No. Punitive damages are a thing that are not actual damages. Actual damages really do just extend to how much profit you lost and how much money you had to spend to repair the effect. That is why they're called "actual damages"
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
This is ridiculous. So, in your mind, if Warren Buffet slanders a man, he should have to pay 10,000x more in damages/punitives than a poor man who does the same? Can you not see the obvious constitutional issues here?
Rich people aren't a protected class and proportional punitive damages would not break equal protection even if it were. Yes the more wealthy a person is the more punishment is required to ensure that they do not take the action we want to disincent.
Because the legal principle of damages is not to disincentivize behavior, it is merely to make the damaged person 'whole' again. Basically, the amount of money it would take to wipe the slate clean. In the case, the jury [somehow] determined that if it weren't for this tape, Hogan would have earned $115 Million dollars more over the course of his lifetime.
Punitive damages are meant to be what disincentivizes "egregious" behavior. In this case a fairly good argument can be made that Gawker acted egregiously. However, the constitution places a cap on punitive damages at somewhere between 3-5 times actual compensatory damages.
The biggest issue that people are having is that in no universe, can any person, with a straight face, say that this tape caused Hogan to lose out on $115 Million of earnings. Any actuary or accountant would have a field day with the math used there.
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
This is ridiculous. So, in your mind, if Warren Buffet slanders a man, he should have to pay 10,000x more in damages/punitives than a poor man who does the same? Can you not see the obvious constitutional issues here?
Rich people aren't a protected class and proportional punitive damages would not break equal protection even if it were. Yes the more wealthy a person is the more punishment is required to ensure that they do not take the action we want to disincent.
It's not a equal protection clause issue, it's a due process issue under the 5th and 14th.
Because the legal principle of damages is not to disincentivize behavior, it is merely to make the damaged person 'whole' again. Basically, the amount of money it would take to wipe the slate clean. In the case, the jury [somehow] determined that if it weren't for this tape, Hogan would have earned $115 Million dollars more over the course of his lifetime.
Punitive damages are meant to be what disincentivizes "egregious" behavior. In this case a fairly good argument can be made that Gawker acted egregiously. However, the constitution places a cap on punitive damages at somewhere between 3-5 times actual compensatory damages.
The biggest issue that people are having is that in no universe, can any person, with a straight face, say that this tape caused Hogan to lose out on $115 Million of earnings. Any actuary or accountant would have a field day with the math used there.
There is no constitutional cap on damages. There is no hard statutory cap in Florida. The fifth amendment protections deal with criminal cases. The 14th amendment due process claims are essentially all equal protection claims. (Or would be covered in the 5th)
You misunderstand. There is a constitutional limit on the proportion of punitive damages in comparison to actual damages.
This case is egregious because the amount of actual damages was way out of line with reality. I would certainly expect an appellate court to find that the amount of actual damages was clearly erroneous (the standard of review for questions of fact on review).
The question of constitutionality with regards to being based on the wealth of the offender is that it could only be accomplished through punitive damages, which, again, have a constitutional cap based on the amount of actual damages.
You misunderstand. There is a constitutional limit on the proportion of punitive damages in comparison to actual damages.
This case is egregious because the amount of actual damages was way out of line with reality. I would certainly expect an appellate court to find that the amount of actual damages was clearly erroneous (the standard of review for questions of fact on review).
The question of constitutionality with regards to being based on the wealth of the offender is that it could only be accomplished through punitive damages, which, again, have a constitutional cap based on the amount of actual damages.
Can you point to the section of the constitution you are referencing. Because I am pretty sure you are wrong.
There may be procedure, precedent, state or federal law, but I cannot remember a portion of the constitution that explicitly limited remedies provided by civil courts.
Williams involved a jury’s awarding the plaintiff $821,000 in compensatory damages and $79.5 in punitive damages (nearly a 100:1 ratio). Interestingly, the Supreme Court did not strike down the award under the single-digit ratio guideline it had established in State Farm. Rather, it remanded the case to the Oregon Supreme Court to determine whether there had been a procedural-due-process violation in the trial judge’s instructions to the jury. The Oregon Supreme Court ended up finding no procedural-due-process violation and affirmed the verdict, and in 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly dismissed the certiorari petition as having been improvidently granted, leaving the verdict untouched.
There has always been an excessive penalty claim. (which we brought up earlier). But there is isn't really any "single digit" rule versus compensatory damages.
And this is what the ruling actually says
We decline again to impose a bright-line ratio which a punitive damages award cannot exceed. Our jurisprudence and the principles it has now established demonstrate, however, that, in practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process
I.E. It does not say that there is any limit and they expressly deny doing so. They ruled on the merits of the case regarding the ratio. Not on a hard rule.
I can understand the argument that duee to corporate executions being rare, that Gawker case is exceptional.
I don't really see it as an argument for lower damages for Gawker though, more of an argument that, yeah, we should be more willing to axe corporations if they keep breaking laws.
The reason we don't do this as a culture (in US jurisprudence), is that the management of the company doesn't greatly suffer when the company is destroyed. All the people who didn't have any impact on the wrongdoing that did their work legally and well are out of work. As are the suppliers, affiliates, and partners. Those with stock in publicly traded companies, from grandpa who retired last year but invested when the company was young and doing good things to your hedge fund jackasses suffer as well. Killing a company places a lot of harm on a lot of unrelated people.
Meinwhile, the administration filed for bankruptcy, sells the company, and ends up with a golden parachute of a few dozen million and plays more golf than they did before.
Damaging a company's future profits are usually how legal remedies are done to ensure appropriate damage is done without harming others, fees that are large enough to cripple the company's ability to effectively grow their assets, but not so much as to cause a cascade of damage down the line. A living company can be made an example of, watched for changing their progress, and face another suit if they break from the ruling. A dead company just makes a lot of unemployed people and nothing really is learned aside from having a really good billionaire on your side backing your company.
And that right there, is a flaw in the system.
Upper management should be responsible for the company.
And problem with using appropriate damages to company profits, is that it does not seem to work, because companies know they are fairly insulated from any lawsuits both by regulatory capture, and simply outspending any would be litigators.
Yet, if upper management were directly responsible for corporate actions that would destroy our limitations on seizure of assets and lead us back to situations like debtor's prisons (which is why the LLC and corporate protections were instituted in the first place). If you can take my house, personal finances, and whatever else I got in my net worth for a fault of my company that might seem like karmic justice, but in reality it is very abusable and the 1740s thru 1890s saw so many nightmare scenarios that most of the anglosphere pushed away from that full force.
Also, where do you limit the "administration"? If I own 20% of a company through stock, but have no personal interest in the stake of a publicly traded company am I culpable? What if I have one share as part of my 401k? Is it only the CEO and CFO? or does it trickle down to other management offices that may have done their fiduciary duty? When is it wrongdoing? When harm happens to a customer or bystander or when someone takes action that deliberately will do good by the customer but not fulfill their bondservice requirements?
It's suuuuper easy to go "DAMN THE MAN!" as far as these cases go. But in reality the reason why there aren't better ways to go after management is because identifying who is actually responsible is often murky and problematic.
I'm not suggesting making them liable for simply being bad managers and tanking a company through poor business decisions.
But if those business decisions include not following the law, then some level of responsibility is in order.
I'm not going to pretend that this is a simply issue.
It is not.
But clearly the defacto state of large corporations being above the law is not a desireable one, and awarding small fine is not working.
Eschewing limited liability would crash our entire economy in a matter of months.
No it wouldn't. It would save countless lives, as high level executives would no long be able to give AIDS to kids, allow gang rapes to happen, poison water supplies with carcinogens, engage in conspiracies against workers, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Holding people who harm others accountable is always a good move, because otherwise we deliberately incentivize harming others. And modern CEOs are so absurdly compensated that even outsized responsibility for avoiding harm is entirely legitimate to ask of them. If they feel uncomfortable with that responsibility, they can seek non-C suite employment.
We have command responsibility for war crimes, and extending that to corporate business, which is an area where it is far more reasonable to demand not killing innocent people than an active war zone, is entirely reasonable.
Williams involved a jury’s awarding the plaintiff $821,000 in compensatory damages and $79.5 in punitive damages (nearly a 100:1 ratio). Interestingly, the Supreme Court did not strike down the award under the single-digit ratio guideline it had established in State Farm. Rather, it remanded the case to the Oregon Supreme Court to determine whether there had been a procedural-due-process violation in the trial judge’s instructions to the jury. The Oregon Supreme Court ended up finding no procedural-due-process violation and affirmed the verdict, and in 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly dismissed the certiorari petition as having been improvidently granted, leaving the verdict untouched.
There has always been an excessive penalty claim. (which we brought up earlier). But there is isn't really any "single digit" rule versus compensatory damages.
And this is what the ruling actually says
We decline again to impose a bright-line ratio which a punitive damages award cannot exceed. Our jurisprudence and the principles it has now established demonstrate, however, that, in practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process
I.E. It does not say that there is any limit and they expressly deny doing so. They ruled on the merits of the case regarding the ratio. Not on a hard rule.
Yes, the court plays it conservative and vague, shocker! The court often rules in such ways, and will almost always rule on procedural grounds if it can avoid making bright line precedent. That's, generally, how it has always been.
What one can take away from these handful of cases though, in combination with the test established in BMW v. Gore, is that awards that are wildly in excess of a single digit multiplier of the actual damages are almost certainly going to get reversed. Which is why I said, as a blanket statement, that if you have a rule that swings awards wildly upwards based upon the wealth of the offender (ie enough to make it an actual disincentive for someone that rich), you're almost certainly going to be into unconstitutional award territory.
Limited liability is abused but the core concept is still super duper duper duper critical for our economy.
I'm much more in favor of actual criminal penalties than financial liability. Taking someone's money is annoying to a rich person and devastating to the innocent family of the accused.
If a fucker has done something awful enough to financially ruin them, they should be put in jail. If what they did wasn't bad enough to put them in jail, they shouldn't be financially ruined.
A minor point: valuing damages based on the net worth of the person damaged is a really terrible idea.
Well no. Because the damages in this case is the lost revenue hogan would have made if he released the tape/it were not released. So yea 5 times someone's net worth in damages then is ridiculous as this would basically suppose that this act was worth 5 times Hogans prior lifetime earnings.
The discouragement portion was peanuts compared to the actual portion and would be reasonable discouragement in and of itself.
We have enough of the proceedings and yea we can absolutely say the judgement was ridiculous. There are two parts to damages.
1) actual : this is actual recordable harm. Lost revenue, reduced profits etc
2) punitive : enough to make it hurt
Hogan did not suffer 115 million in actual damages. The number is ridiculous. The idea he could have made that much money selling his sextape and the idea that gawker benefitted as much as it supposedly did and the idea that he was dropped by wrestling as a result of it and not the racism
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
This is ridiculous. So, in your mind, if Warren Buffet slanders a man, he should have to pay 10,000x more in damages/punitives than a poor man who does the same? Can you not see the obvious constitutional issues here?
Yes. Because if you fine him like the poor man, then how is he incentivized to not do the act again?
Not to mention that, due to his wealth, Warren Buffet is capable of doing FAR more damage via slander than some random guy.
Anyway, I mourn their loss. They were also an independent outlet who used that independence to go after powerful people aggressively. And yeah sometimes that ended up with them going over board and being shitty.
But on the whole, I'd prefer media that zealously acts in the due role of the press in society and sometimes goes over board rather than media that bumbles along being mediocre and then occasionally, oh oops we were cheerleaders for the Iraq War or whatever.
I think it's important to note that Gawker went after everyone with gusto. Nobody's on twitter with 10 followers making a race joke. Potential rape victims getting fucked blackout drunk on bathroom floors. Private citizens getting blackmailed by prostitutes.
That occasionally a powerful person fell into their crosshairs seems incidental to their desire to ruin lives for the fun and enjoyment of it.
It's very similar to when people go "Well yeah, the Mongols killed untold millions, but they increased contact between the east and the west, and that's important." That evil acts have unintended virtuous consequences is not cause to celebrate something. I'm sure I could find a silver lining to Hitler too.
Well, I mean from what I've heard the trains were at least on time.
More to the point, I have to admit that Gawker being bankrupted by this whole thing has been kind of surprising. Did they deserve to lose? Well, yeah. I'd agree with that. Did they owe Hogan damages? Yeah, sure.
Did they owe Hogan damages so severe the company should be forced to shutter itself?
Fuck no. People lose their mind about the amount of money the infamous (and incorrectly reported) McDonald's hot coffee lady won in her settlement, and she was actually physically disfigured. What sorts of damages to Hogan's reputation could that sex tape have done that he was awarded five times his own net worth?
That it wasn't lowered at all is ridiculous, and we shouldn't be happy about this. This isn't justice anymore, it's vengeance. Sure, Gawker isn't the most sympathetic defendant, but I'm having a real hard time swallowing this suit being what kills them. It doesn't make sense.
What is important to note, and it's be brought up by people better educated in law than me, is that a large part of what factors into damages in discouraging the industry from similar practices. Maybe we're all so used to 10 years of banks getting a slap on the wrist for ruining the global economy that we forget that.
Hogan's lawyers showed, quite convincingly with help from Gawker themselves, that they have no regard for the law, and gladly and callously ruin lives for clicks. They care nothing for newsworthiness, privacy or even whether they are sliming private persons as opposed to public persons. Hogan's sex tape was not a one off, and Gawker's own testimony was quite adamant that they'd do it again.
Now, if you are on a jury, and the defendant was quite adamant that even if you find them guilty, as soon as they are able they'll do it again, forever, what would you do?
Maybe the judgement is of an amount that can not be truly justified legally. But I think the jurors had the right idea.
The problem is that a $20 million award would have achieved the exact same goal. Especially if you know that Thiel will fund as future plaintiffs regardless of merit. That fact alone would keep Gawker on their toes.
The $140 million suit doesn't simply discourage companies from acting irresponsibly. It flat out prevents them from writing anything at all.
He'll, it doesn't even discourage people from paying revenge porn. It simply discourages people from agitating the rich and powerful. A company that does the latter has far more reason to be worried than a company that does the former.
Anyway, I mourn their loss. They were also an independent outlet who used that independence to go after powerful people aggressively. And yeah sometimes that ended up with them going over board and being shitty.
But on the whole, I'd prefer media that zealously acts in the due role of the press in society and sometimes goes over board rather than media that bumbles along being mediocre and then occasionally, oh oops we were cheerleaders for the Iraq War or whatever.
I think it's important to note that Gawker went after everyone with gusto. Nobody's on twitter with 10 followers making a race joke. Potential rape victims getting fucked blackout drunk on bathroom floors. Private citizens getting blackmailed by prostitutes.
That occasionally a powerful person fell into their crosshairs seems incidental to their desire to ruin lives for the fun and enjoyment of it.
It's very similar to when people go "Well yeah, the Mongols killed untold millions, but they increased contact between the east and the west, and that's important." That evil acts have unintended virtuous consequences is not cause to celebrate something. I'm sure I could find a silver lining to Hitler too.
Well, I mean from what I've heard the trains were at least on time.
More to the point, I have to admit that Gawker being bankrupted by this whole thing has been kind of surprising. Did they deserve to lose? Well, yeah. I'd agree with that. Did they owe Hogan damages? Yeah, sure.
Did they owe Hogan damages so severe the company should be forced to shutter itself?
Fuck no. People lose their mind about the amount of money the infamous (and incorrectly reported) McDonald's hot coffee lady won in her settlement, and she was actually physically disfigured. What sorts of damages to Hogan's reputation could that sex tape have done that he was awarded five times his own net worth?
That it wasn't lowered at all is ridiculous, and we shouldn't be happy about this. This isn't justice anymore, it's vengeance. Sure, Gawker isn't the most sympathetic defendant, but I'm having a real hard time swallowing this suit being what kills them. It doesn't make sense.
What is important to note, and it's be brought up by people better educated in law than me, is that a large part of what factors into damages in discouraging the industry from similar practices. Maybe we're all so used to 10 years of banks getting a slap on the wrist for ruining the global economy that we forget that.
Hogan's lawyers showed, quite convincingly with help from Gawker themselves, that they have no regard for the law, and gladly and callously ruin lives for clicks. They care nothing for newsworthiness, privacy or even whether they are sliming private persons as opposed to public persons. Hogan's sex tape was not a one off, and Gawker's own testimony was quite adamant that they'd do it again.
Now, if you are on a jury, and the defendant was quite adamant that even if you find them guilty, as soon as they are able they'll do it again, forever, what would you do?
Maybe the judgement is of an amount that can not be truly justified legally. But I think the jurors had the right idea.
The problem is that a $20 million award would have achieved the exact same goal. Especially if you know that Thiel will fund as future plaintiffs regardless of merit. That fact alone would keep Gawker on their toes.
The $140 million suit doesn't simply discourage companies from acting irresponsibly. It flat out prevents them from writing anything at all.
He'll, it doesn't even discourage people from paying revenge porn. It simply discourages people from agitating the rich and powerful. A company that does the latter has far more reason to be worried than a company that does the former.
This is why Breitbart targets trans people for disagreeing with them and get women fired from Nintendo for being feminists. It's legal to muckrake and lie to ruin people's lives. What's illegal is pissing off rich people.
It was, but it doesn't change the fact that the McD's people were such assholes in the case that the jury decided to send a message, I see similar themes with the gawker case. Originally that woman had just sued for her medical bills only...
Worth noting, again, that the maximum she was awarded before reduction was 2.8 million. Fifty times lower than Gawker's verdict.
It was 2.8 million in 1994; over 20 years ago. Different sort of time today. Also my point was more that if you walk into a jury case with a bad attitude and you have deep pockets, the jury might decide to teach you lesson.
Fine. 5.6 after inflation. Keep in mind that McDonalds was a 5 billion dollar company at the time(iirc) the punitive damages were 3 days of profit from coffee to them. The equivalent punitive damages that would have been applied to McD would have been 3 billion dollars.
Edit: 3 billion 1994 dollars. So 6 billion today. Literally over 1000 times more than was awarded.
Perhaps it should have been 3 billion..they were knowingly serving coffee they knew could and was causing serious burns to people. They had over 700 complaints and a litany of settlements already. They got cocky and figured since they were so big no one could really take them to task on that. And then they ended up in front of jury with a sympathetic octogenarian victim who'd been permanently disfigured. They had also had multiple opportunities to settle the case for pennies on the eventual verdict..which really boggles the mind since they already knew their coffee was scalding people.
Similar deal here, Gawker reaped what they sowed by not taking the case seriously. And frankly that's the whole point of a jury of peers.
Similar deal here, Gawker reaped what they sowed by not taking the case seriously. And frankly that's the whole point of a jury of peers.
Being an asshole isn't a crime.
It might be a valid reason for the jury to rule against them, our even a punitive award, but it doesn't magically justify why the damage award is that high.
Similar deal here, Gawker reaped what they sowed by not taking the case seriously. And frankly that's the whole point of a jury of peers.
Being an asshole isn't a crime.
It might be a valid reason for the jury to rule against them, our even a punitive award, but it doesn't magically justify why the damage award is that high.
Similar deal here, Gawker reaped what they sowed by not taking the case seriously. And frankly that's the whole point of a jury of peers.
Being an asshole isn't a crime.
It might be a valid reason for the jury to rule against them, our even a punitive award, but it doesn't magically justify why the damage award is that high.
I don't know, I see it as the point of a jury, to add a bit of humanity to the proceedings and say "hey, you're going to muckrake and walk in here like this is a waste of your time, well then pay the fucking price."
I don't get the sense that jury's just go around awarding huge sums of cash as a matter of course, usually you have to do something pretty stupid, and casually talking bout child porn in deposition tends to do that.
It would be one thing if gawker was serving some public good, but clearly putting out sex tapes from washed up B celebrities is a pure exercise in baiting clicks and this time someone just happened to get nailed for doing it, and I say good riddance.
It was, but it doesn't change the fact that the McD's people were such assholes in the case that the jury decided to send a message, I see similar themes with the gawker case. Originally that woman had just sued for her medical bills only...
Worth noting, again, that the maximum she was awarded before reduction was 2.8 million. Fifty times lower than Gawker's verdict.
It was 2.8 million in 1994; over 20 years ago. Different sort of time today. Also my point was more that if you walk into a jury case with a bad attitude and you have deep pockets, the jury might decide to teach you lesson.
Fine. 5.6 after inflation. Keep in mind that McDonalds was a 5 billion dollar company at the time(iirc) the punitive damages were 3 days of profit from coffee to them. The equivalent punitive damages that would have been applied to McD would have been 3 billion dollars.
Edit: 3 billion 1994 dollars. So 6 billion today. Literally over 1000 times more than was awarded.
Perhaps it should have been 3 billion..they were knowingly serving coffee they knew could and was causing serious burns to people. They had over 700 complaints and a litany of settlements already. They got cocky and figured since they were so big no one could really take them to task on that. And then they ended up in front of jury with a sympathetic octogenarian victim who'd been permanently disfigured. They had also had multiple opportunities to settle the case for pennies on the eventual verdict..which really boggles the mind since they already knew their coffee was scalding people.
Similar deal here, Gawker reaped what they sowed by not taking the case seriously. And frankly that's the whole point of a jury of peers.
Might be GST territory, but apparently everybody served coffee at that temperature and they continue to serve coffee at that temperature. It is apparently industry standard. What's changed is warnings on cups and better made cups. Personally, I remain baffled as to how the whole thing has played out, because despite the lawsuit's result, corporate behaviour has not changed nor have incidences of burning been dramatically reduced, but somehow the results of the lawsuits have.
I don't get the sense that jury's just go around awarding huge sums of cash as a matter of course, usually you have to do something pretty stupid, and casually talking bout child porn in deposition tends to do that.
It would be one thing if gawker was serving some public good, but clearly putting out sex tapes from washed up B celebrities is a pure exercise in baiting clicks and this time someone just happened to get nailed for doing it, and I say good riddance.
The problem with this mindset is that it's incredibly easy to abuse in both directions because you're letting personal bias trump any sense of actual justice our fairness.
Anyway, I mourn their loss. They were also an independent outlet who used that independence to go after powerful people aggressively. And yeah sometimes that ended up with them going over board and being shitty.
But on the whole, I'd prefer media that zealously acts in the due role of the press in society and sometimes goes over board rather than media that bumbles along being mediocre and then occasionally, oh oops we were cheerleaders for the Iraq War or whatever.
I think it's important to note that Gawker went after everyone with gusto. Nobody's on twitter with 10 followers making a race joke. Potential rape victims getting fucked blackout drunk on bathroom floors. Private citizens getting blackmailed by prostitutes.
That occasionally a powerful person fell into their crosshairs seems incidental to their desire to ruin lives for the fun and enjoyment of it.
It's very similar to when people go "Well yeah, the Mongols killed untold millions, but they increased contact between the east and the west, and that's important." That evil acts have unintended virtuous consequences is not cause to celebrate something. I'm sure I could find a silver lining to Hitler too.
Well, I mean from what I've heard the trains were at least on time.
More to the point, I have to admit that Gawker being bankrupted by this whole thing has been kind of surprising. Did they deserve to lose? Well, yeah. I'd agree with that. Did they owe Hogan damages? Yeah, sure.
Did they owe Hogan damages so severe the company should be forced to shutter itself?
Fuck no. People lose their mind about the amount of money the infamous (and incorrectly reported) McDonald's hot coffee lady won in her settlement, and she was actually physically disfigured. What sorts of damages to Hogan's reputation could that sex tape have done that he was awarded five times his own net worth?
That it wasn't lowered at all is ridiculous, and we shouldn't be happy about this. This isn't justice anymore, it's vengeance. Sure, Gawker isn't the most sympathetic defendant, but I'm having a real hard time swallowing this suit being what kills them. It doesn't make sense.
What is important to note, and it's be brought up by people better educated in law than me, is that a large part of what factors into damages in discouraging the industry from similar practices. Maybe we're all so used to 10 years of banks getting a slap on the wrist for ruining the global economy that we forget that.
Hogan's lawyers showed, quite convincingly with help from Gawker themselves, that they have no regard for the law, and gladly and callously ruin lives for clicks. They care nothing for newsworthiness, privacy or even whether they are sliming private persons as opposed to public persons. Hogan's sex tape was not a one off, and Gawker's own testimony was quite adamant that they'd do it again.
Now, if you are on a jury, and the defendant was quite adamant that even if you find them guilty, as soon as they are able they'll do it again, forever, what would you do?
Maybe the judgement is of an amount that can not be truly justified legally. But I think the jurors had the right idea.
The problem is that a $20 million award would have achieved the exact same goal. Especially if you know that Thiel will fund as future plaintiffs regardless of merit. That fact alone would keep Gawker on their toes.
The $140 million suit doesn't simply discourage companies from acting irresponsibly. It flat out prevents them from writing anything at all.
He'll, it doesn't even discourage people from paying revenge porn. It simply discourages people from agitating the rich and powerful. A company that does the latter has far more reason to be worried than a company that does the former.
This is why Breitbart targets trans people for disagreeing with them and get women fired from Nintendo for being feminists. It's legal to muckrake and lie to ruin people's lives. What's illegal is pissing off rich people.
You are giving Breitbart too much credit in those situations.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
This brute force legal tactic reminds me of the way science works too
just do trials over and over until something sticks by chance, that's p hacking
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Increasingly I find myself wondering if we are on the razors edge between two slippery slopes. One slippery slope has a far less free press. The other slippery slope has sometimes journalist, sometimes bloggers, whichever suits them at the time, trawling twitter for idiots to dox and send hate brigades after. Or just straight up violating people's privacy for the "public interest".
Personally, I lean towards privacy. I think privacy is a pivotal safeguard of free speech. It's also far more relevant to each and every one of us than a free press.
I also wonder if this is how a christian bakery feels when the UCLA rolls into town and sues them into oblivion for not baking a gay wedding cake. Here comes somebody with infinitely more resources than they'll ever have, and far more media influence, with better lawyers than they'll ever find, and endless patience. And it's always somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere too. Some town of all of 1000 people.
Naturally if you hate bigots you cheer that someone with infinite resources is looking out for gay people. You see no slippery slope, and nothing at risk what so ever. Just somebody who did something wrong and got punished for it. That a third party organization had to bankroll it and send in a crack team of lawyers hardly matters to you.
You know, maybe lets wait to see if any other news organizations actually get sued into oblivion for upsetting a billionaire. Gawker is clearly deserving. And maybe lets see what other lawsuits Peter Thiel is actually funding. Because I've seen nothing petty or money wasting yet. Nobody thinks the Hogan case reached the wrong verdict. Just the wrong amount. And that's on the jury and the judge, not Peter Thiel or his lawyers.
And yeah, I know about Mother Jones. But that just speaks to the necessity of anti-SLAPP laws. It doesn't speak against what Peter Thiel has done so far.
I think there's also a substantive difference between doing something in an attempt to drive social change versus destroying a particular organization. Admittedly, Thiel has stated that he considers his actions benevolent, but I think to any reasonable third-party observer, that's a load of horseshit. He's not generally going after people who out others; he's going specifically after the people who outed him. The ACLU doesn't intentionally target specific organizations for lawsuit and seek to drive them into the ground; they're not going to sue the bakery repeatedly until they close, and they're not fanning out to find anybody who's ever been offended by that bakery to fund multiple lawsuits at the same time.
Analogy: I fail students. That's fine. Sometimes students don't deserve to pass. I don't target specific students just to fail them (and also let other similar students get a pass), and then go around to their other instructors and get them to fail those students too. That's malicious.
I think there's also a substantive difference between doing something in an attempt to drive social change versus destroying a particular organization. Admittedly, Thiel has stated that he considers his actions benevolent, but I think to any reasonable third-party observer, that's a load of horseshit. He's not generally going after people who out others; he's going specifically after the people who outed him. The ACLU doesn't intentionally target specific organizations for lawsuit and seek to drive them into the ground; they're not going to sue the bakery repeatedly until they close, and they're not fanning out to find anybody who's ever been offended by that bakery to fund multiple lawsuits at the same time.
Analogy: I fail students. That's fine. Sometimes students don't deserve to pass. I don't target specific students just to fail them (and also let other similar students get a pass), and then go around to their other instructors and get them to fail those students too. That's malicious.
When you become an administrator that is pretty much your job
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I also wonder if this is how a christian bakery feels when the UCLA rolls into town and sues them into oblivion for not baking a gay wedding cake. Here comes somebody with infinitely more resources than they'll ever have, and far more media influence, with better lawyers than they'll ever find, and endless patience. And it's always somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere too. Some town of all of 1000 people.
Except in the real world, it turns out that the bigots have no trouble raising far more money than the people actually trying to sue them, simply by signing up for an online fundraiser site.
For instance, Memories Pizza is a shop in a town with 2000 people. They're not even open for lunch hour. They don't offer delivery.
And yet they raised nearly a million dollars online after vowing not to serve gay weddings.
And keep in mind that they never even went to court. No one actually sued them.
I also wonder if this is how a christian bakery feels when the UCLA rolls into town and sues them into oblivion for not baking a gay wedding cake. Here comes somebody with infinitely more resources than they'll ever have, and far more media influence, with better lawyers than they'll ever find, and endless patience. And it's always somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere too. Some town of all of 1000 people.
Except in the real world, it turns out that the bigots have no trouble raising far more money than the people actually trying to sue them, simply by signing up for an online fundraiser site.
For instance, Memories Pizza is a shop in a town with 2000 people. They're not even open for lunch hour. They don't offer delivery.
And yet they raised nearly a million dollars online after vowing not to serve gay weddings.
And keep in mind that they never even went to court. No one actually sued them.
To be fair, they raised $800k after they closed due to death threats.
And they didn't "vow not to serve gay weddings", the owner's daughter was asked by a local reporter if they would cater a hypothetical gay wedding and she said no. And that reporter couldn't write the headline "Local Business Hates Gays Says Gay Weddings Are Satanic Rituals" fast enough. And their reaction to a gay man driving 3 hours to buy two pies for his and his husband's ceremony to renew their vows was, at worst, indifference.
I also wonder if this is how a christian bakery feels when the UCLA rolls into town and sues them into oblivion for not baking a gay wedding cake. Here comes somebody with infinitely more resources than they'll ever have, and far more media influence, with better lawyers than they'll ever find, and endless patience. And it's always somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere too. Some town of all of 1000 people.
Except in the real world, it turns out that the bigots have no trouble raising far more money than the people actually trying to sue them, simply by signing up for an online fundraiser site.
For instance, Memories Pizza is a shop in a town with 2000 people. They're not even open for lunch hour. They don't offer delivery.
And yet they raised nearly a million dollars online after vowing not to serve gay weddings.
And keep in mind that they never even went to court. No one actually sued them.
To be fair, they raised $800k after they closed due to death threats.
And they didn't "vow not to serve gay weddings", the owner's daughter was asked by a local reporter if they would cater a hypothetical gay wedding and she said no. And that reporter couldn't write the headline "Local Business Hates Gays Says Gay Weddings Are Satanic Rituals" fast enough. And their reaction to a gay man driving 3 hours to buy two pies for his and his husband's ceremony to renew their vows was, at worst, indifference.
Yeah, that was probably the most unnecessary series of events I've ever heard of. Didn't the reporter just go down the phone book calling up every place in town until one said they wouldn't cater a gay wedding. Bam, there's his story! There wasn't even an actual gay person who was refused service.
But, like I said, if you hate bigots, you think everything worked out like it should. An angry mob shut down their business with death threats. There are no free speech or free association issues. People just shouldn't be bigots. You're just angry that anybody felt sorry enough for them to donate money. There is no slippery slope here at all. And there probably wasn't since I haven't heard of anything escalating from there. Seems it was a passing news fad that ran it's course.
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I believe there is room to make the limited liability limited (instead of non existent).
I don't expect, or want, for people to just declare CEO's/managers/stock holders to be liable to anything corporates do.
But i would wish for exploring making the limited liability slightly more limited in egrecious cases (also make stockholders more capable of holding CEO's and other upper management responsible for the stockholders).
Actual damages extend beyond just how much revenue you lost.
The other option is that the damages for running the life of someone who isn't a millionaire are less than paying your lawyer to defend the suit.
That already exists within the current legal framework when such folk break their fiduciary duty. That's what people like Bernie Madoff could have their personal funds seized when they didn't uphold their guarentees to their creditors. That same process can't apply to other forms of legal wrongdoing because literally every possible thing that could go wrong could destroy your income.
Someone slips and falls on a wet floor in your restaurant? You get sued and probably lose the ~20k in savings you have as an average business owner, and then goes your house and stuff to make the financial payments needed to cover those medical expenses. LLC makes it so the company shoulders both the burden and risk, along with all of those who guarantee the company into being (cosigners, investors, etc up to the value of their buy in). Without that no one could operate a company without constant fear of losing everything due to negligence, which would crush the economy in a heartbeat and turn into the 1750s financially in a matter of months.
Fines paid should come from damages done, and the amount fo wealth and/or income the payer has, to make sure the fines actually deter reoffending.
This is ridiculous. So, in your mind, if Warren Buffet slanders a man, he should have to pay 10,000x more in damages/punitives than a poor man who does the same? Can you not see the obvious constitutional issues here?
Yes. Because if you fine him like the poor man, then how is he incentivized to not do the act again?
No. Punitive damages are a thing that are not actual damages. Actual damages really do just extend to how much profit you lost and how much money you had to spend to repair the effect. That is why they're called "actual damages"
Rich people aren't a protected class and proportional punitive damages would not break equal protection even if it were. Yes the more wealthy a person is the more punishment is required to ensure that they do not take the action we want to disincent.
Punitive damages are meant to be what disincentivizes "egregious" behavior. In this case a fairly good argument can be made that Gawker acted egregiously. However, the constitution places a cap on punitive damages at somewhere between 3-5 times actual compensatory damages.
The biggest issue that people are having is that in no universe, can any person, with a straight face, say that this tape caused Hogan to lose out on $115 Million of earnings. Any actuary or accountant would have a field day with the math used there.
It's not a equal protection clause issue, it's a due process issue under the 5th and 14th.
There is no constitutional cap on damages. There is no hard statutory cap in Florida. The fifth amendment protections deal with criminal cases. The 14th amendment due process claims are essentially all equal protection claims. (Or would be covered in the 5th)
And the law was followed in this case.
This case is egregious because the amount of actual damages was way out of line with reality. I would certainly expect an appellate court to find that the amount of actual damages was clearly erroneous (the standard of review for questions of fact on review).
The question of constitutionality with regards to being based on the wealth of the offender is that it could only be accomplished through punitive damages, which, again, have a constitutional cap based on the amount of actual damages.
Can you point to the section of the constitution you are referencing. Because I am pretty sure you are wrong.
There may be procedure, precedent, state or federal law, but I cannot remember a portion of the constitution that explicitly limited remedies provided by civil courts.
From your own link
There has always been an excessive penalty claim. (which we brought up earlier). But there is isn't really any "single digit" rule versus compensatory damages.
And this is what the ruling actually says
I.E. It does not say that there is any limit and they expressly deny doing so. They ruled on the merits of the case regarding the ratio. Not on a hard rule.
No it wouldn't. It would save countless lives, as high level executives would no long be able to give AIDS to kids, allow gang rapes to happen, poison water supplies with carcinogens, engage in conspiracies against workers, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Holding people who harm others accountable is always a good move, because otherwise we deliberately incentivize harming others. And modern CEOs are so absurdly compensated that even outsized responsibility for avoiding harm is entirely legitimate to ask of them. If they feel uncomfortable with that responsibility, they can seek non-C suite employment.
We have command responsibility for war crimes, and extending that to corporate business, which is an area where it is far more reasonable to demand not killing innocent people than an active war zone, is entirely reasonable.
Yes, the court plays it conservative and vague, shocker! The court often rules in such ways, and will almost always rule on procedural grounds if it can avoid making bright line precedent. That's, generally, how it has always been.
What one can take away from these handful of cases though, in combination with the test established in BMW v. Gore, is that awards that are wildly in excess of a single digit multiplier of the actual damages are almost certainly going to get reversed. Which is why I said, as a blanket statement, that if you have a rule that swings awards wildly upwards based upon the wealth of the offender (ie enough to make it an actual disincentive for someone that rich), you're almost certainly going to be into unconstitutional award territory.
I'm much more in favor of actual criminal penalties than financial liability. Taking someone's money is annoying to a rich person and devastating to the innocent family of the accused.
If a fucker has done something awful enough to financially ruin them, they should be put in jail. If what they did wasn't bad enough to put them in jail, they shouldn't be financially ruined.
Not to mention that, due to his wealth, Warren Buffet is capable of doing FAR more damage via slander than some random guy.
Steam: pazython
The problem is that a $20 million award would have achieved the exact same goal. Especially if you know that Thiel will fund as future plaintiffs regardless of merit. That fact alone would keep Gawker on their toes.
The $140 million suit doesn't simply discourage companies from acting irresponsibly. It flat out prevents them from writing anything at all.
He'll, it doesn't even discourage people from paying revenge porn. It simply discourages people from agitating the rich and powerful. A company that does the latter has far more reason to be worried than a company that does the former.
This is why Breitbart targets trans people for disagreeing with them and get women fired from Nintendo for being feminists. It's legal to muckrake and lie to ruin people's lives. What's illegal is pissing off rich people.
Steam: pazython
Perhaps it should have been 3 billion..they were knowingly serving coffee they knew could and was causing serious burns to people. They had over 700 complaints and a litany of settlements already. They got cocky and figured since they were so big no one could really take them to task on that. And then they ended up in front of jury with a sympathetic octogenarian victim who'd been permanently disfigured. They had also had multiple opportunities to settle the case for pennies on the eventual verdict..which really boggles the mind since they already knew their coffee was scalding people.
Similar deal here, Gawker reaped what they sowed by not taking the case seriously. And frankly that's the whole point of a jury of peers.
Being an asshole isn't a crime.
It might be a valid reason for the jury to rule against them, our even a punitive award, but it doesn't magically justify why the damage award is that high.
Being reckless is, however.
I don't know, I see it as the point of a jury, to add a bit of humanity to the proceedings and say "hey, you're going to muckrake and walk in here like this is a waste of your time, well then pay the fucking price."
I don't get the sense that jury's just go around awarding huge sums of cash as a matter of course, usually you have to do something pretty stupid, and casually talking bout child porn in deposition tends to do that.
It would be one thing if gawker was serving some public good, but clearly putting out sex tapes from washed up B celebrities is a pure exercise in baiting clicks and this time someone just happened to get nailed for doing it, and I say good riddance.
Might be GST territory, but apparently everybody served coffee at that temperature and they continue to serve coffee at that temperature. It is apparently industry standard. What's changed is warnings on cups and better made cups. Personally, I remain baffled as to how the whole thing has played out, because despite the lawsuit's result, corporate behaviour has not changed nor have incidences of burning been dramatically reduced, but somehow the results of the lawsuits have.
The problem with this mindset is that it's incredibly easy to abuse in both directions because you're letting personal bias trump any sense of actual justice our fairness.
Steam: pazython
I imagine if Trump loses, he'll turn this precedent into a second career.
You are giving Breitbart too much credit in those situations.
Fourth hand sources (which are of course always trustworthy) suggest "for several years".
just do trials over and over until something sticks by chance, that's p hacking
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Personally, I lean towards privacy. I think privacy is a pivotal safeguard of free speech. It's also far more relevant to each and every one of us than a free press.
I also wonder if this is how a christian bakery feels when the UCLA rolls into town and sues them into oblivion for not baking a gay wedding cake. Here comes somebody with infinitely more resources than they'll ever have, and far more media influence, with better lawyers than they'll ever find, and endless patience. And it's always somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere too. Some town of all of 1000 people.
Naturally if you hate bigots you cheer that someone with infinite resources is looking out for gay people. You see no slippery slope, and nothing at risk what so ever. Just somebody who did something wrong and got punished for it. That a third party organization had to bankroll it and send in a crack team of lawyers hardly matters to you.
You know, maybe lets wait to see if any other news organizations actually get sued into oblivion for upsetting a billionaire. Gawker is clearly deserving. And maybe lets see what other lawsuits Peter Thiel is actually funding. Because I've seen nothing petty or money wasting yet. Nobody thinks the Hogan case reached the wrong verdict. Just the wrong amount. And that's on the jury and the judge, not Peter Thiel or his lawyers.
And yeah, I know about Mother Jones. But that just speaks to the necessity of anti-SLAPP laws. It doesn't speak against what Peter Thiel has done so far.
I think there's also a substantive difference between doing something in an attempt to drive social change versus destroying a particular organization. Admittedly, Thiel has stated that he considers his actions benevolent, but I think to any reasonable third-party observer, that's a load of horseshit. He's not generally going after people who out others; he's going specifically after the people who outed him. The ACLU doesn't intentionally target specific organizations for lawsuit and seek to drive them into the ground; they're not going to sue the bakery repeatedly until they close, and they're not fanning out to find anybody who's ever been offended by that bakery to fund multiple lawsuits at the same time.
Analogy: I fail students. That's fine. Sometimes students don't deserve to pass. I don't target specific students just to fail them (and also let other similar students get a pass), and then go around to their other instructors and get them to fail those students too. That's malicious.
When you become an administrator that is pretty much your job
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Except in the real world, it turns out that the bigots have no trouble raising far more money than the people actually trying to sue them, simply by signing up for an online fundraiser site.
For instance, Memories Pizza is a shop in a town with 2000 people. They're not even open for lunch hour. They don't offer delivery.
And yet they raised nearly a million dollars online after vowing not to serve gay weddings.
And keep in mind that they never even went to court. No one actually sued them.
To be fair, they raised $800k after they closed due to death threats.
And they didn't "vow not to serve gay weddings", the owner's daughter was asked by a local reporter if they would cater a hypothetical gay wedding and she said no. And that reporter couldn't write the headline "Local Business Hates Gays Says Gay Weddings Are Satanic Rituals" fast enough. And their reaction to a gay man driving 3 hours to buy two pies for his and his husband's ceremony to renew their vows was, at worst, indifference.
Yeah, that was probably the most unnecessary series of events I've ever heard of. Didn't the reporter just go down the phone book calling up every place in town until one said they wouldn't cater a gay wedding. Bam, there's his story! There wasn't even an actual gay person who was refused service.
But, like I said, if you hate bigots, you think everything worked out like it should. An angry mob shut down their business with death threats. There are no free speech or free association issues. People just shouldn't be bigots. You're just angry that anybody felt sorry enough for them to donate money. There is no slippery slope here at all. And there probably wasn't since I haven't heard of anything escalating from there. Seems it was a passing news fad that ran it's course.