301–310 of 335 posts
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> Is that how the legal system works in America? Money wins? Ask any small company dealing with a giant patent troll.
Except the difference here is that Gawker is a multimillion dollar corporate entity with access to the same tier of representation as Hogan. This isn't some David vs Goliath story.
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>...there are perfectly valid ethical questions about Thiel's involvement and motivations in this whole debacle. Your post basically reads like a law school ethics question/answer. You did a great job issue spotting. Law being one of the most highly regulated industries there are rules on point, so I can answer some of your questions. Here is how the Florida Rule of Professional Conduct reads "Rule 4-5.4(d): Exercise…
Right, I'm not saying "this is cut and dried -wrong-" but that it does raise what I feel are valid questions about the influences, both conscious and subconscious that surround this whole situation. Like you say, Thiel could not direct the firm to change strategy, but on the other hand (and I realize that this may come across as an accusation where one isn't intended), no doubt Thiel is talking to the law firm, and d…
I totally agree, and the Bars that regulate lawyers agree. Not just valid, but serious enough issues for the Bars to create Rules to try to guide lawyers when confronted with these exact scenarios. Notwithstanding the Rules and severe punishments, they can still be broken, and as you suggest violations can be intentional and unintentional only clouding these ethical issues.
Just don't under estimate how archaic the Bars Rules are in practice. For example, the power of Admonishment wherein lawyers are dragged in front of groups of their peers to be publicly ridiculed, a record of the event is made and distributed among the community. Even if not disbarred, punishment is not only humiliating but can potentially ruin a career anyhow.
>Bollea and Thiel's interests may also be perfectly aligned.
I haven't confirmed, but I think the gist is that separate and apart from the firm's representation of Bollea, the firm represents Thiel in various unrelated legal matters. If true, coincidentally we know that at minimum Bollea and Thiel don't have adverse interests[1]. Moreover, before a firm represents a client (Bollea) they must perform a conflict check against all existing clients, which coincidentally would have included the payer, Thiel.
Funny enough I don't think such a conflict check is required of someone who pays the lawyer for another (Thiel if he wasn't a client of the firm) and such a rule would seem to make sense. Though it would be burdensome in the instance of crowdsourcing lawsuits which will probably begin to become more of a thing. It would also be a strange analysis in the criminal justice context where the tax payer is paying the judge, the prosecutor and the defense (in the instance of public defender cases), or even insurance cases where opposing parties are both insured by the same company (e.g. my insurance company is representing me and paying for my litigation, and they are also representing and paying the opposing litigation...a conflict).
[1] FL Rule: https://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.nsf/FV/2E30A65D3638C...
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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…
If a lawyer explained such a choice to me I'd likely choose to take the insurer out of the picture too. Principles.
"Your Honor, we are dropping this claim here, but keeping all the rest intact."
"You realize that this means the defendant will have little to no ability to compensate you for the damages you claimed and sought and stated caused you duress?"
"... Yes... Your Honor."
If you state it's about compensation for lost potential earnings, and such, and say you need to be made whole, then waive away a large part of your practical ability to be made whole, at what point does that become disingenuous?
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Gawker proudly published Hulk Hogan's sex tape (while shaming him for it), while also shaming websites for publishing J.Law's nudes. I can't see anything redeeming about such an inconsistency: http://imgur.com/gallery/CQ5qgvu
And they owned ValleyWag which tried to out Thiel as gay.
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If the only way you can argue against them is to refer to some rules you made up, I agree. In any event "retribution" is an overly simplistic way of looking at what Thiel did. It could also be interpreted as protecting future victims of Gawker. Suppose someone stabs me, and I live. For whatever reason, they get away and continue to run around stabbing people. If at some point in the future, they attempt to stab someo…
What I find funny about this example is that at first I thought the "it happened" argument was going to be used in defense of the person doing the stabbing. Which, of course, it could.
Gawker went and made a powerful enemy for no good reason. Outing someone who didn't want to be outed helped no one. Thiel used the considerable means at his disposal to ruin Gawker in a way that didn't harm anyone other than the owners of Gawker. Since nobody else really benefited from Gawker's existence it's unsurprising that nobody else really cares if they stop existing.
If Gawker had been exposing powerful people doing something illegal or otherwise harmful instead of just being gay or having affairs, they would have had the justice system and the public on their side and they wouldn't have lost the lawsuit.
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Just because they published things that have been good journalism allows them carte blanche to publish things that break the law and are morally reprehensible? I find this logic baffling.
the sex tape was reprehensible but outing? Aren't we like ten to twenty years past that point? Its not really different than the press publishing cheating stories these days.
Not actually debating the merits of outing a public figure, but regarding your timeline, this was 2007, or 9 years ago, so it's possible that no, we were not past "that point" at that point. However you are defining that point.
Is this something that is normal among tabloid outfits? I have no idea because I really don't follow tabloids.
I absolutely despise Gawker. The stories they run and the stuff they do would normally mean that I would love for them to be run into the ground. At the same time, they are the only independent online media outlet left in the world. Every other company that once prided itself on being "independent" from the large media network owned by ancient billionaires has now received at least hundreds of millions of dollars in…
HN is filled with people that immediately side with scumbag VCs.
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"Dear members of the jury, please be aware that the accuser is partly supported by third-party X, who has conflicts of interest Y, Z and W with the accused." is all I am asking for. > Right, so the real problem here is simply that people don't like him. For the record, I am far more pro-Thiel than I am pro-Gawker, although I base my judgement only on their public reputations. I am actually more concerned about the ge…
In what way would that knowledge aid the jury in coming to an impartial verdict? Peter Thiel had and has nothing to do with the case itself. The facts and merits of the actual case are unchanged by his involvement and as such this information is immaterial.
In this case it's the first. What those of us who are looking at this case with more long-term consequences in mind are worried about is the second.
Thought experiment. Let's suppose I was previously the victim of police brutality. Later on in life, I became a billionaire and decided I wanted to do something with my money. I decide to fund every lawsuit in the country against all police departments. Is this okay?
Then later in life I'm a billionaire and I want revenge. It becomes known publicly that I want to destroy him and his company so very badly, that I will fund any lawsuit against him or them. I fund lawsuit after lawsuit until the company is destroyed and he is bankrupted and ruined, his family and life in shambles.
Is that okay?