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Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#581

Post by markoman »

dragonwriter wrote: post #517
darth_avocado wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First amendment isn’t under attack. Alex Jones isn’t being punished by the govt. Ge attacked people, they responded back. Defamation law has always existed and people can always sue you for libel and slander.

> First amendment isn’t under attack. True, but... > Alex Jones isn’t being punished by the govt. The courts are part of the government, and Constitutional limits on government power apply to civil liability; the First Amendment, quite notably, restricts the conditions in which defamation liability can be applied.

The Constitutional right to free speech has been construed to protect your right to criticize the government (generally) and those who hold governmental posts. The Constitution doesn't mention defamation directly, but the doctrine that your rights end where anothers begin means that if you should actually injure someone through your untruthful speech or writing, then you should pay restitution to them and possibly punitive damages. The laws vary depending on the state, of course.

Since Jones is seen to have intentionally caused these plaintiffs emotional distress, the plaintiffs are being awarded compensatory damages nearing $1 billion, however punitive damages will be considered next because of a Connecticut law that bars using false statements to sell products. (A hearing set for Nov. 7 will determine the amount of those damages.)

According to the law, all the plaintiffs had to prove was that Jones (1) knowingly made false statements that would cause the claimants emotional distress and (2) such distress and injury could be proved or substantiated. In this case, the government served primarily as a mediator between the private citizens on both sides.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#582

Post by scarab92 »

tptacek wrote: post #578
scarab92 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how a company can inflict $25 million in damages per person. Damages for wrongful death usually don't even go this high.

People seemed to have no problem with the idea that Oberlin could have inflicted $36MM against a family. I didn't either! That's how tort damages work.

The Oberlin case had damages of $25 million, not $36 million, and that was the combined award to number of individuals plus a company that suffered a significant loss of revenue.

Apples vs Oranges.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#583

Post by sophacles »

donatj wrote: post #470
tptacek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remarkably, I think this is all economic damages --- they haven't reached the punitive damages phase. Furthermore, Connecticut doesn't have caps on compensatory damage for emotional distress. So this isn't quite like the Texas situation, where Jones attorneys successfully convinced the jury to award relatively small compensatory damages and large punitive damages --- those Texas punitive damages will get knocked way…

How does one possibly cause $64 million in straight damages per plaintiff? This isn't even the punitive yet. You could take everything I own and prevent me from ever earning another dollar and it wouldn't be $64 million dollars.

He made money from lying about them. That's what the market paid for the plantiff's reputation. When the market pays a price for something, that's it's value. By lying he was harming their reputation without their consent, they bore the costs of it, while he made the profit. That looks similar to theft. I don't see why the damages shouldn't be for the demonstrable value of the harm.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#584

Post by [deleted] »

abliefern wrote: post #485
unknownaccount wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alex Jones wasnt the mastermind who created this conspiracy theory. The crisis actors conspiracy theory was already popular on the internet a couple days after the incident, months to years before Alex Jones covered it. There were numerous people speculating at the time about some strange discrepencies in the official narrative and footage which was able to convince some otherwise very reasonable people that there wa…

Five minutes of research shows that this isn't true and that he knew. I'm not sure anyone is seriously attributing the conspiracy theory to him, they are attributing to him that he spread it, publicly attacking the families while making money doing so.

[deleted]

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#585

Post by dragonwriter »

voisin wrote: post #572
dragonwriter wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He’ll declare bankruptcy Sure, but debts from frauds and willful and malicious harms, includong associated punitive damages, are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

I was not aware of this. Do you have a source?

11 USC § 523(a) generally, and for willful or malicious injury specifically 11 USC § 523(a)(6).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/523

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#586

Post by shadowgovt »

richwater wrote: post #564
shadowgovt wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alex Jones level of remorse has no bearing on the level of damage he caused That's an excellent legal argument, is the kind of thing that could probably win before a judge... And has no bearing on what a jury finds. In general, the reasoning of a jury is private to the jury. They can award maximum damages because they think Jones is ugly (all you have to do is get fourteen people to agree that's a fair thing to do…

I mean sure, but compensatory damages will be appealed and the jury determined amount will be overturned.

Probably. And when it happens, the overturn will be relative to where it is now. The jury's power here is still to send a clear message of what the public thinks, and that will factor into the judge's reasoning... For example, if a judge decides that it doesn't make sense for compensatory damages to be any higher than X, the jury has made clear that they expect 100% of X to be the damages level.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#587

Post by tptacek »

scarab92 wrote: post #582
tptacek wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seemed to have no problem with the idea that Oberlin could have inflicted $36MM against a family. I didn't either! That's how tort damages work.

The Oberlin case had damages of $25 million, not $36 million, and that was the combined award to number of individuals plus a company that suffered a significant loss of revenue. Apples vs Oranges.

I don't agree. But if you'd like another example: Hulk Hogan got $115MM personally from Gawker, over a sex tape.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#589

Post by lovich »

warbeforepeace wrote: post #536
lovich wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He probably could have made such an argument or a similar one on his defense but he received a default judgement because he continuously refused to show up to court dates for his case and perjured himself repeatedly. If this was a soccer game he basically walked to the edge of the field and sat there the whole game and then complained that the refs were in a conspiracy against him because the opposing team was able t…

He received a default judgment because he failed to provide discovery items including financial documents to show the company value, videos that included sandy hook, text and emails that included sandy hook, how much it made of sandy hook and failed to provide a competent corporate representative that could answer questions on a list of items that was provided in advance.

Is that not failing to defend himself? And you skipped over the perjury. And for one I missed, he continued his attacks on the parents on Infowars during his show

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#590

Post by jacobolus »

hunterb123 wrote: post #170
criddell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jones didn’t speculate, he asserted that the shooting was a hoax and the victims on tv were paid actors.

Asserting one's opinion is speculating. Personally I don't see how you can say he knew it to be false given his reputation as a conspiracy theorist. You can't both think he is crazy and think that he knew it to be false, that would assume he is rational. Hanlon's razor and all that.

So in other words, only people with a reputation for integrity should have to abide by the law, and as long as someone is a known pathological liar, they should be allowed to defame and send armies of trolls to harass anyone they feel like, whenever and as often as they like?
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