Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 566 posts

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#461

Post by slg »

sangnoir wrote: post #414
slg wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well run media companies have insurance for this type of thing. When Mother Jones lists the cost of that lawsuit, they combined both the costs they paid with the costs the insurance company paid for a total of $2.5 million. You need to separate those two costs out if you want to prove the Mother Jones was legitimately on the brink of bankruptcy due to the lawsuit. Otherwise it just appears to be an insurance company…

> Well run media companies have insurance for this type of thing It looks like you haven't been paying close attention to the Gawker suite: Gawker also had insurance, but Bollea strategically dropped a charge that would have let Gawker claim against insurance (and at the same time reducing the total amount he would receive). This suite isn't about damages: it's about bankrupting Gawker for better or for worse. There'…

I have been following the Gawker case and if the prosecutors can adjust the case in such a way to avoid insurance it tells me that either Gawker didn't have the right kind of insurance or that the insurance company found Gawker liable in such a way that they lost the right to coverage. Either way, that is a Gawker problem and not a problem of legal precedent.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#462

Post by rayiner »

jacquesm wrote: post #453
rayiner wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(3) is more a statement that "you need a certain amount of money to successfully fund a lawsuit" than "more often than not the party with the [bigger] bank account will [win]." Two slightly different concepts. Beyond that: the "merits" of a case is unknowable. Courts don't have the "merits" in front of them. They have the evidence and arguments developed by the parties. Consider the Gawker case: did Gawker publish th…

> Spending a lot more money than that isn't going to get you a much better result. And that's precisely the point, if you don't have that money (and this can be quite a lot) then you're out of luck. The linked case is about a celebrity worth quite a bit of money and still it wasn't enough to get the case decided in his favor, it needed yet another - bigger - millionaire / billionaire to step in to sway the case. I do…

> And that's precisely the point, if you don't have that money (and this can be quite a lot) then you're out of luck.

I'm just cautioning extrapolating from that, to the conclusion that the party with more money wins the lawsuit. That's only true up to a certain baseline.

> And that's just civil proceedings, in criminal proceedings the odds are stacked even worse against a defendant without funds.

Maybe. The DOJ's conviction rate isn't appreciably different between divisions, including white collar crime: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao/legacy/2011... (all around 90%).

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#463

Post by __jal »

ryanlol wrote: post #419
__jal wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I don't see the harm of "maintenance" It is right in front of your nose. Whatever your views of Gawker, Thiel destroyed a news company out of spite. That seems like maybe a little bit of a problem. > It's not about what's right, its about what's allowed. People with a lot of money have a big advantage in that regard. If we try to change that, we'll have to redo a lot of the legal system. Or, you know, revert to…

>It is right in front of your nose. Whatever your views of $x, Thiel destroyed a $y out of spite. That seems like maybe a little bit of a problem. What's wrong with Thiel destroying things out of spite? Should he not be allowed to retaliate if someone attacks him? Why? Should anyone be allowed to retaliate when attacked? Is the only problem here that Thiel used the courts to accomplish this, rather than other means?

> What's wrong with Thiel destroying things out of spite?

We appear to have isolated our point of disagreement. I'm afraid I can only say, if you can't answer this for yourself, I can't answer it for you.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#464

Post by jdminhbg »

grellas wrote: post #278

A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…

I don't see how #4 is an illustration of how the process was tainted. People seem to assume Thiel and his lawyers acted on their own to make sure Gawker's insurance wouldn't cover the settlement, but why do we think Hogan would be any less amenable to giving up a few million in order to destroy Gawker? He's just as motivated to see them bankrupt as Thiel is, just less capable of funding lawsuits.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#465

Post by kofejnik »

olliej wrote: post #122
GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Precedent this sets"? I think "Don't publish a illegally made video of people in a private moment or ignore court orders to take down the video." to be a rather positive precedent, don't you? That's the sort of chilling effect on media we should all be applauding. Thief merely funded a court battle that had merit (in this case, quite a lot of merit) that Bollea probably could have won on his own. I fail to see what…

It wasnt illegally made, it wasnt stolen, it was in the public interest (hogan is a very public figure, and has gone on at length about being faithful, not cheating, loose morals of young people). So... Reporting on that seems like actual information that should be public? Compare to the pamela anderson tape, which was with her husband, was literally /stolen from their home/, and was sold for profit. Judge ruled that…

by extension, the Fappenning was public interest, too. But somehow Gawker is saying "In the summer of 2014, anonymous hackers flooded the internet with private nude photos of major (and minor) celebrities. Two years later, new details show the FBI thinks they identified Jennifer Lawrence’s hacker. But no one’s facing charges."

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#466

Post by jdminhbg »

wrsh07 wrote: post #423
Kalium wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a wealthy media company acting in a way that exposes them to liability, relying the inability of those they have victimized to seek redress?

I'm not saying Gawker is a martyr here. But if you haven't, you really ought to read Benedict Evans piece on this: > Again, though, Thiel has already won. He is fabulously wealthy and extremely influential, and say what you will about Gawker, the liberal democracy that made it possible for the companies Thiel has built and invested in to emerge depends on a free press; driving a publication to bankruptcy via lawyer f…

Wrong Ben -- that's Ben Thompson, not Benedict Evans.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#467

Post by SilasX »

ryanlol wrote: post #424
SilasX wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly -- the problem is that our civil litigation's "truth-finding procedure" is so vulnerable to financial influence. Asking how to "keep people from spending money on lawyers" is the wrong approach; the system's process needs to be robust against such asymmetric investment. [1] People forget that proper civil litigation is a public good (in the economic sense). Ensuring that (civil) wrongdoers pay for their actio…

>the problem is that our civil litigation's "truth-finding procedure" is so vulnerable to financial influence Do you have any scientific research backing this? Or just anecdotal evidence?

The premise of this discussion is that the better funded side tends to get a better result (in a manner superlinear with respect to the funding). If you reject that premise, fine, but your comment belongs higher up, or as its own thread, not as a criticism of my specific point.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#468

Post by EdHominem »

ryanlol wrote: post #424
SilasX wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly -- the problem is that our civil litigation's "truth-finding procedure" is so vulnerable to financial influence. Asking how to "keep people from spending money on lawyers" is the wrong approach; the system's process needs to be robust against such asymmetric investment. [1] People forget that proper civil litigation is a public good (in the economic sense). Ensuring that (civil) wrongdoers pay for their actio…

>the problem is that our civil litigation's "truth-finding procedure" is so vulnerable to financial influence Do you have any scientific research backing this? Or just anecdotal evidence?

Asking for scientific evidence that the sun will come up is almost like trolling.

In an adversarial system your chances depend on the amount of valid legal process-effort you exert. If you acknowledge that this effort is correlated with financing, even a little, then you admit there is a vulnerability.

A more reasonable question would be if they have a reason to assume that the variable has an oversized impact on the process.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#469

Post by scrollaway »

Clanan wrote: post #397
grellas wrote: post #278

A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…

Like many things in politics and law, forming one's opinion must include considering a reverse situation - what if a wealthy individual funded the successful litigation of a "positive" entity? e.g. Bill Gates funding the destruction of the EFF (assuming someone had a case). I was taught to do this in political classes (based on James Madison's discussion of factions), and it can have such a huge impact on motives and…

> For example, should government track all Muslims? What if in 10 years the government started tracking all Christians?

It certainly works as an argument but it's scary it even has to come up this way. It's basically having to explain to someone else: "You know, muslims are people too".

"It could happen to you" is a symptom of failed education of the recipient. It's scary some people today still lack basic empathy, the basic considerations that "all people are equal and deserve the same respect as you owe yourself".

Not to detract from your point, of course. It's more understandable that someone wouldn't immediately connect the dots between "Bad thing happening to bad entity" and "Bad thing could also happen to good entity". Although I'd consider it a similar failure of education as well.

Re: Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction

#470

Post by padmanabhan01 »

grellas wrote: post #278

A few thoughts: 1. The pressure point here was a court ruling declining to stay enforcement of the $140M judgment pending appeal. This left Gawker having to post a $50M bond in order to avoid enforcement proceedings by which its assets could have been seized and its business literally dismantled. Gawker may or may not ultimately prove to have a successful basis upon which to get this judgment reversed but, without a…

Wait. Isn't the right approach to make sure money doesn't influence litigation or legislative process, than trying to ban someone from funding another party's litigation.

If money can influence litigation, isn't that a bigger problem than a third party funding some lawsuit for whatever reason?

Post reply on HN