Gawker Files for Bankruptcy, Will Be Put Up for Auction • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by ryanlol » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:30 PM UTC

EdHominem wrote: post #468

ryanlol wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>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.

This is a fair point, but the existence of such a vulnerability is unquestionable. However, SilasX seemed to be implying that this is a significant vulnerability, which is a claim that certainly deserves some evidence to back it up.

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

That's exactly what I was asking about, SilasX specifically said "so vulnerable" as opposed to just "vulnerable". That seems to imply such an oversized impact.

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

#472

Post by pron » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:31 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

But that's not what happened. The case was "decided in his favor" a long time ago when Gawker offered to settle for a sum of money that would far exceed anything he could have expected in his wildest dreams in any other country other than the US. Thiel intervened not to win Bollea more money (indeed, he may end up getting less), but to pay Bollea off so that the case would be about hurting Gawker more than benefiting Bollea, which is what Thiel wanted. I understand that they even changed the lawsuit so that the insurance wouldn't cover the payoff to Bollea -- getting him less money -- only so that Thiel could hurt Gawker further.

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

#473

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:31 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #458

rayiner wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we are otherwise left a little unsettled over what the promiscuous scattering of third-party money throughout the courts might do. Whatever it is, it likely is not good. I disagree. Division of labor and specialization is almost always economically efficient. Litigation finance is just the embodiment of that concept applied to litigation. Traditionally, litigation has been financed either by: (1) the plaint…

Considerations of economic efficiency are a complete non sequitur. You're either being skilfully provocative, or making a category error. Justice is not a resource to be allocated, and in this case all we're discovering the price of is a billionaire's bruised ego.

It's a completely uncontroversial view of the justice system that it exists to ensure resources are properly allocated: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/53.Posner.Values_0.p....

For example, one might view lawsuits against polluters as a matter of punishing companies that do harmful things to the environment. I'd argue that's a pretty fuzzy and irrational basis for environmental law. A more rigorous approach is to view environmental lawsuits as forcing polluters to internalize their negative externalities: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=....

In that context, meritorious lawsuits that don't get brought are inefficient. They represent a polluter not forced to internalize its externalities, or a business creating risk not forced to bear the costs of that risk, or a business creating harm not forced to compensate the injured. That distorts incentives and leads to more than an efficient amount of harmful activities.

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

#474

Post by saint_fiasco » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:34 PM UTC

sheepleherd wrote: post #443

smt88 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Libel and slander have no place in a functioning democracy One man's libel/slander is another man's investigate journalism ("muckraking" in the US). In this particular case, Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. > it shouldn't take a billionaire to sue and win judgement against slanderous publishers It's actually much harder to win a libel/s…

| Gawker wasn't guilty of either libel or slander because they didn't publish anything about Hogan that was false. ...not to mention, Hogan's public persona and living he has earned has been by posing as a larger than life clownish character; I don't even see that he was harmed. Ask yourself, do you think less of Hogan now? (and not because it turns out that he has less impressive sounding real name) I'd have more sy…

Hogan can't eat our positive thoughts. He lost a lot of respect among the kind of people that (economically) matter a lot to him, like sponsors and employers.

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

#475

Post by Paul-ish » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:35 PM UTC

ohnomrbill wrote: post #444

CPLX wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying things like that. But I keep wondering if they have considered the flip side of that, which is are we really comfortable saying that the personal relationships of rich and famous people shouldn't be in the media? When I go to the supermarket I see 500 headlines about famous people dating and breaking up and cheating on their partners, etc. Sure it's a little lowbrow but do we really feel that rumor…

I don't feel that celebrity dating life is ok to publish, actually. It's very seedy and not in the public interest in the average case. Celebrites are fairly open about their disgust for the constant filming of their private life. I would relish it if Brad Pitt or someone else got a similar judgement from the courts.

> I don't feel that celebrity dating life is ok to publish, actually. It's very seedy and not in the public interest in the average case.

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech is not about evaluating everything said and determining if something is "in the public interest" in the United States. I think that focus on the "public interest" aligns more with European or Chinese cultural values.

If we are talking about personal values, I am glad we don't have censors in the US. Even if you and I can agree celebrity gossip probably has no value, what get defined as "not in the public interest" is too easy to be politically determined.

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

#476

Post by unclebucknasty » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:37 PM UTC

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…

Another way of looking at this is by questioning why it is so expensive for people to obtain redress in civil matters in the first place. If Hogan had not benefited from Thiel's interest and otherwise could not afford to mount his case, then it appears that any transgressions against him would simply stand.

Where's the justice in that?

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

#477

Post by Nelson69 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:38 PM UTC

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…

Weren't maintenance laws ended for a reason? In England I thought it had more to do with the differences in class, commoners could sue lords but without another lord on their side they were pretty disadvantaged. So other lords could simply lend their name or backing to a commoner and the original lord would have to fight a more substantial case, regardless of merit. The lords passed the law to protect themselves. Lords and commoners are closer now.

I'd argue that maybe we need to come up with a way to go even further. This is only interesting because the idea of actually materially harming a corporation through litigation is so foreign these days. That and for some reason a few employees of some major news papers have allowed gawker to be lumped in with their own publications, giving "maintenance" to the idea that this is a first amendment issue. Do you have anything to substantiate that it's "not good" to allow third-party money in the courts? I'm sure there are things we haven't thought of but can it be worse than big money in politics? There are still judges that run their courts, right? They still have a roll here.

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

#478

Post by MichaelBurge » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

biztos wrote: post #410

tptacek wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the cases ACLU is involved in are against the government, not private entities.

If we disallow cases because the defendant is not the government, doesn't that invite someone to disallow cases because the defendant is the government? (Which of course happens all the time, but still...)

No, the government is held to a higher standard because they control the police and military. There are countless issues where I'd say the government should be restricted in a way that private parties are not.

Besides, the government already has sovereign immunity to lawsuits unless it chooses to allow itself to be sued. So if anything your first sentence is backward.

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

#479

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #455

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 think we are otherwise left a little unsettled over what the promiscuous scattering of third-party money throughout the courts might do. Whatever it is, it likely is not good. I disagree. Division of labor and specialization is almost always economically efficient. Litigation finance is just the embodiment of that concept applied to litigation. Traditionally, litigation has been financed either by: (1) the plaint…

[deleted]

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

#480

Post by unclebucknasty » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 9:48 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #315

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…

(3) is proof positive the absence or presence of funds has too much influence on the outcome of court cases. If all that stands between a judgment one way or the other is a pile of cash then effectively there is no such thing as justice and this means that more often than not the party with the smallest bank account will lose. I'm fine with the concept of 'maintenance' but at the same time I feel that there is such a…

This. The "high price of justice" is the fundamental problem, whether you are a plaintiff seeking redress or a defendant hoping to avoid a default judgment.

I don't know what the fix is, but the current system is near-extortionate (an attorney made this observation to me).

If party A makes a claim against party B, but party B cannot afford counsel, then party B would likely be required to acquiesce to those claims. The standard to be considered frivolous is woefully high. And, even making that case generally requires counsel.

This gives firms and individuals with the resources to access the legal system tremendous advantages over those who do not have same.