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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

121–130 of 1001 posts

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#121
post #85

[flagged]

> I suspect the billion dollar settlement will be overturned on appeal as being excessive Not a lawyer, but that didn't seem to have happened? Quote from this article: https://www.reuters.com/legal/appeals-court-upholds-nearly-1... "A three-judge panel of the Connecticut Appellate Court found that a jury's October 2022 decision to award $965 million in damages plus attorneys fees and costs to families of the shooting…

Just found out he recently lost appeal. He has Connecticut Supreme Court, federal district court and SCOTUS to appeal to now.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/connecticut-court-uphold...

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#122
post #87

Probably needs to be settled before Trump gets in?

Trump, nor any other president, can eliminate the court's decision. A president's power would be limited to appointing judges in open positions, so potentially the responsible appeals court (up to the SCOTUS) could be influenced, but not controlled.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#123

[flagged]

Defamation is a crime, the fact that his listeners harassed people because of that defamation makes it even worse.

This. A core part of defamation cases (especially from a damages point of view), is showing that the false statements caused harm, and that's generally by way of those statements influncing other's beliefs and actions (apart from harassment, this could also take the form of people being unwilling to work with/provide a service to the defamed party because of said statements).

(Note that it's important that the statements are false, and depending on some details, that either they were known to be false at the time, or that there was a reckless disregard to the truth, i.e. no effort was made to determine if they were true or false. If you state something that is true, or is false but you had good reason to believe is true, or that is merely an opinion, then it's not defamation even if someone harassess them or worse)

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#125

Remember that this was made possible by the intervention of Elon Musk. I suspect he may end up buying the assets himself or someone in this circle.

Is that asset of any use at this point? Even onion’s bid seems like a waste of money to me

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#127

[flagged]

He is being held responsible for personally defaming the Sandy Hook victims and families.

Thank you. Can you elaborate? Wouldn’t jones stating garbage like the shooting didn’t happen etc. be opinion? How were his statements defamation ? I missed where he defamed the families as I don’t listen to his shows.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defamation is a crime, the fact that his listeners harassed people because of that defamation makes it even worse.

This. A core part of defamation cases (especially from a damages point of view), is showing that the false statements caused harm, and that's generally by way of those statements influncing other's beliefs and actions (apart from harassment, this could also take the form of people being unwilling to work with/provide a service to the defamed party because of said statements). (Note that it's important that the statem…

Ok thanks. This is what I was curious about. Got it.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#129
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can't pay his debts. What alternative to bankruptcy do you propose?

I'm not arguing against bankruptcy. I'm saying that bankruptcy is a structured process that is supposed to generate monetary outcomes for everyone. Selling off assets in a non-competitive process is basically a criminal move, especially if you collude with one of the bidders who is also a creditor. Bankruptcy itself aside, the judgement against Alex Jones here is huge. I haven't looked it up but I'm sure it broke rec…

> Selling off assets in a non-competitive process is basically a criminal move, especially if you collude with one of the bidders who is also a creditor.

Not sure why the bankruptcy trustee working with the companies largest creditors, so large, that a simple proportionate would result in them claiming pretty much the entire possible payout, can be considered collusion.

The only people who can possibly be harmed are the creditors themselves. If they want to strike a deal that results in more equitable outcome, but with less total cash, that’s their business. Remember Alex Jones is on the hook for close to a billon dollars, and that sum has already been through various appeals and due process already, it’s no longer up for debate. The only question left is how Jones is gonna pay it. Unless someone creditably believes someone is going to hand over close to a billion dollars to purchase InfoWars, it seems silly to reject an offer that the creditors themselves believe is fair and reasonable.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#130
post #87

Probably needs to be settled before Trump gets in?

Trump, nor any other president, can eliminate the court's decision. A president's power would be limited to appointing judges in open positions, so potentially the responsible appeals court (up to the SCOTUS) could be influenced, but not controlled.

> influenced, but not controlled

A useless distinction in practice.

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