181–190 of 335 posts
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Good; there SHOULD be a chilling effect on publishing private material of the sort being litigated. There's a difference between 'what the public is interested in' and 'the public interest'.
So if it were a Donald Trump sex tape rather than a hulk Hogan one, should airing under a minute of it cost the NYTimes $150M?
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This is a poorly thought out argument. He isn't doing anything under-handed or illegal to destroy Gawker. He isn't fabricating evidence against them or paying off cops. He's simply financing a non-spurious lawsuit, which the courts have decided was legitimate. This is exactly what I want the billionaires in our society doing. He may be acting in his own self-interest, but it also happened to align with the public int…
He is very much doing something under-handed to destroy Gawker. Gawker owns insurance to decouple financial harm from existential harm in the case of lawsuits like these. The civil system expects that victims who are harmed will try to maximize expected payout in case of a suit. If Hulk's legal case is indeed robust, he should have included every possible harm in the suit to maximize his payout. The decision to struc…
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Exactly what is unethical about his conduct here? I really don't understand what problem anyone has with this.
I wonder whether Hogan/Bollea was advised by "his" counsel about the ramifications of dropping one of the pieces of litigation - a piece that would have increased the ability for Bollea to collect that damage award. As it happens the particular tort that was dropped was the only one that would allow Gawker to use their insurance to cover the liability of the verdict awarded. Thiel's goal is to destroy Gawker. A Gawke…
Which also happens to align with the overall interests of the lawyer's patron.
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> arguing that it is always fair to use "augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim" as a tactic is not uncontroversial in the general case. In which specific cases is it illegitimate? The only answer I've been able to come up with is "when you don't like the person or cause." I mean, if anyone wants to condemn the general case, please remember that you'll be condemning the EFF, ACLU and many s…
> He could not have done anything at all to them if the cases were not meritorious. That's not true at all. One jury verdict (before appeals have been heard) plus a bunch of nascent suits is no proof of eventual merit. It could be that every single one of those cases eventually ends up getting dismissed, or being awarded negligible verdicts. But because Gawker may not be able to afford a full defense, they could well…
They had lawyers. They had their defense. They can appeal, but they have no one but themselves to blame for going to court and asserting the right to publish stolen sex tapes of anyone over 4... and for violating a court order.
Inasmuch as there are problems here, they're with the legal system in general, not this suit specifically.
Rather, it reminds me more of the McDonald's hot coffee thing, where if they had been reasonable, they wouldn't have been hit so hard.
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What if Thiel simply pays Bollea not to settle? FTA: "He would not say whether he had compensated any of the people, including Mr. Bollea, which could raise questions in an appeal."
It's Bollea's rights that would be violated, so he's the one to decide such. I highly doubt he will given the circumstances. That's why I can't take seriously anyone other than him suggesting such.
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This is a poorly thought out argument. He isn't doing anything under-handed or illegal to destroy Gawker. He isn't fabricating evidence against them or paying off cops. He's simply financing a non-spurious lawsuit, which the courts have decided was legitimate. This is exactly what I want the billionaires in our society doing. He may be acting in his own self-interest, but it also happened to align with the public int…
He is very much doing something under-handed to destroy Gawker. Gawker owns insurance to decouple financial harm from existential harm in the case of lawsuits like these. The civil system expects that victims who are harmed will try to maximize expected payout in case of a suit. If Hulk's legal case is indeed robust, he should have included every possible harm in the suit to maximize his payout. The decision to struc…
I'm genuinely curious, where did you learn that the only goal of the civil suit system is to compensate the damaged party? It would seem odd to me that punitive damages would be a thing that exists, distinct from compensatory damages, if they're not meant to be a part of the system. I don't see how there was an "expected principle" of that at all.
>Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some portion of the punitive damage award.
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I don't know enough about the case at hand to comment specifically, but arguing that it is always fair to use "augmenting the resources of someone with a legitimate legal claim" as a tactic is not uncontroversial in the general case. Keep in mind that selectively punishing common legal violations is a common censorship tactic in many places. Consider this case in Mexico: "On 12 March 2015, two journalists from MVS, D…
But what's the solution to this problem? Ban wealthy people from financing lawsuits? That's never going to happen. What about ban people with malicious intent from financing the lawsuits? You'll rarely be able to prove the intent.
http://qz.com/692312/billionaire-peter-thiels-attack-on-gawk...
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"The free press" is rather a grandiose title for a rag like Gawker. If Gawker counts as part of "the free press" -- the people Americans trust with the privilege of mediating their access to much information -- then yes, "the press" deserves whatever it gets.
Unpopular and distasteful speech is the entire purpose of press freedom and free speech. Keep in mind that while many people would agree with you that Gawker is scum, various communities take offense and find tasteless all sorts of other things. Freedom is either near absolute or useless.
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Yes.
That is a terrifying mentality. Should Romney have been able to sue about his 47% comments? Why is everyone so content to march into fascism?
Publishing a sex tape is completely different than writing about it.