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Jury Orders Gawker To Pay $115 Million To Hulk Hogan In Sex Tape Lawsuit (zerohedge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the that's-a-lot-of-zeros dept.

An anonymous reader writes: [Hogan's attorneys told jurors this is the core of the case:] "Gawker took a secretly recorded sex tape and put it on the Internet." And now they are paying for it, dearly. Also notable is that there doesn't seem to be anyone interested in defending them, as even the Twitter community (if it can truly be called that) has come out strongly in favor of the ruling against Gawker. Maybe they should have at least made more friends? They did make $6.5 million in net income in 2014 and their Wikipedia article states that they were last sold in 2009 for $300 million, so while they may not be put out of business, it seems likely they will at least be [changing] hands, and soon, with the jury ruling $55 million for economic injuries and $60 million for emotional distress. I think that's jury-speak for "body slam."
According to Ars Technica, Gawker Media was one of the first successful, large, digital-only news companies. "The stunning sum, which may have punitive damages added to it, is a life-threatening event for the New York-based network of news and gossip sites."

35 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Help! I've Been Colonized And I Can't Get Up! by rudy_wayne · · Score: 2, Funny

    "life-threatening event"

    Gawker is a corporation, not an actual living entity.

    Not according to the Supreme Court.

  2. Good. by kuzb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's time gawker got kicked in the balls for their shitty reporting practices. My only regret is that the hulkster is not allowed to use the piile-driver on the CEO in the court room following the verdict.

    --
    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    1. Re:Good. by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hogan's signature move is the leg drop, not the pile drive.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    2. Re:Good. by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Given his age I'd already be surprised if he could do the leg drop anymore, let alone kick it up a notch.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by Improv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It feels very strange to me that someone could be set for life, catapaulted to wealth far beyond what most individuals might accrue, based on a legal judgement like this.

    --
    For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
    1. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by digitalderbs · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't disagree that the amount seems excessive. However, you can't compare him to a regular person. The personal damage could be comparable to a regular person--and the damages should be comparable. However, a large part of the damages here are for professional damages. I'd be surprised if the professional damages were that high too, but I guess the jury did not. It appears he was fired from the WWE over this.

      The number will escalate too, as they haven't added on punitive damages, and he's also getting money from the CEO and editor at the time.

    2. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This isn't just compensating the victim, this is also about punishment. The only way to punish a corporation is in its balance sheet.

      All too often, we see fines levied against huge corps that are pretty much chump change to them. If you make millions or billions from misconduct, a few million dollars in fines is nothing - it's the cost of doing business.

      So, good for the Hogan! If it drives Gawker out of business, well fuck'em! I just hope that if the editorial staff tries to start another company like this, the investors do due diligence and realize the type of people they're dealing with.

    3. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I believe this is the tape that contained Hogan making racial slurs, which caused him to be kicked out of the WWE, lose his toy line, and most of his other various promotions, etc. His source of income is gone.

      He's 62 now, so if he lives another 15 years, that's basically just 8 million dollars a year that he's charging. And his estate has also lost out from sales that would have happened after his death. And don't forget punitive damages.

      $115 million seems fair considering that it was a humiliating invasion of privacy that left his career and estate in ruins and his personal reputation extremely damaged. (For comparison, Erin Andrews got $55 million for being spied on and recorded, which was unquestionably a highly traumatic experience invoked on her by a despicable person, but ultimately it may have helped her career if anything.)

    4. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by Intron · · Score: 2

      It feels very strange to me that someone could be set for life, catapaulted to wealth far beyond what most individuals might accrue, based on a legal judgement like this.

      What seems strange to me is that a celebrity can sue and win over someone using their personal data, but not a regular individual. In that case it's their data because you were forced to agree to the fine print where you gave up rights to sue. And just to kick you in the teeth they send you their "privacy policy" every year..

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    5. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      It feels very strange to me that someone could be set for life, catapaulted to wealth far beyond what most individuals might accrue, based on a legal judgement like this.

      I doubt the amount will stick, juries really have no idea how much in damages to award though the final number will be interesting to see.

      It really is possible he's lost $55 million in income since his racist comments on the tape really hurt his career. But should Gawker be on the hook for that, even if they were wrong in publishing the tape?

      Note that the summary omits many of the more lurid details of the case, such as:
      -The fact that Gawker defied a court order to remove their posted copy of the sex tape: http://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hogan-sex-tape-po-481328088
      -Court testimony by the Gawker reporter accused that they considered anybody above the age of four (not a typo) to be a valid subject for this kind of article: http://nypost.com/2016/03/09/gawker-editors-line-a-sex-tape-of-a-4-year-old/

      The actual testimony is a absolutely fascinating train wreck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pr8S44o6N4. The defendants literally did everything they could to make both the judge and jury loathe them; so much so that the jury awarded above the originally requested amount when delivering a verdict.

      The damages awarded is well and truly deserved for once so it's got a pretty good chance of sticking.

    6. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by Cederic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I fear your utter misinterpretation of his fairly simple point.

      In related news, hide a camera in my bathroom and the police will be paying you a visit. However, for $55m I'll visit your professional studio so you can photograph me naked. Shit, I'll do a goatse pose and everything.

    7. Re:Fair that money was awarded, amount excessive by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      I think the number must of been designed to hurt Gawker, instead of to appease Hogan. Anything over single digit millions is a ridiculous number for emotional distress and his remaining career was not any where near worth 100 million, but I am unaware what evidence was brought forward to show that it hurt his career at all.

      Easy, the defense ... was laughable. Let's just say what Gawker did to internet "journalism", they attempted to do same to the judge, jury and the court.

      And the jurors did not take kindly to that, which is why they awarded MORE than the requested amount!

        Think of it - Hogan asked for $100M, probably expecting to settle for $10M or so and life goes on. Instead, Gawker does their usual thing and they fail to reach a settlement. So it goes to court, and Gawker thinks it's just another game - judge's orders are merely requests to be disregarded, "journalism" above all. The court is suitably not impressed and the jurors equally offended at the defense to stick it to Gawker.

      Disregarding a judge's order to take down the video, defiantly as well, is also not likely to go over with the courts. The appeals court may cut down the award, but it's likely not by much - the courts are not impressed by defendants who basically insult them, and appeals go both ways - the judge may have let the contempt charge pass at first, but it can be reinstated on appeal.

      Even English tabloids, known for their crass nature, generally try to be more classy.

      And every Apple event, it's always funny to see Gawker sites begging Apple for passes to their event (Gawker got blackballed during a massive iPhone 4 expose they did way back in 2010) - even funnier when they could simply ante up and pay for regular public tickets and attend, but they still beg for the free press passes instead. From this they invented the meta-liveblog, where they liveblog the Apple event... based on reading other Apple liveblogs or the public live event streams.

  4. LIsten by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gawker is garbage.

    They lead the charge telling the most astonishing lies about gamers - and getting away with it. They only people crying over this are Gawker's owners and the insane far left SF hordes who used it in their ideological crusade.

    May they rot in hell.

    1. Re:LIsten by Rockoon · · Score: 2

      You need to understand that the people that willingly harm others believe that everyone else is out to willingly harm them, which leads to them accusing others of the acts that they themselves commit.

      You see it on both the left and right, but the largest concentration of it is within the "progressive" left. They think that "their opponents" are sexist because they themselves can't see past sex, they think that "their opponents" are racist because they themselves cant see past race, and so on....

      So the people that actually do swat/dox/harass others are accusing "their opponents" of doing that stuff. They justify it internally based on their convenient assumption that "their opponents" do this also.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
  5. Whatcha Gonna Do Gawker by Kunedog · · Score: 5, Funny

    . . . when your own unethical journalism catches up with you?

  6. Re:If you don't want your sex tape on the internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It was recorded without his or the woman's consent. The woman and her husband had an open marriage, the man encouraged them to have sex and recorded it secretly. He then sold it to make money.

  7. Re:Help! I've Been Colonized And I Can't Get Up! by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because it would keep stockholders from acting as the worst sort of absentee owner allowing their evil sociopathic corporate child to run roughshod over everything.

  8. Re:Help! I've Been Colonized And I Can't Get Up! by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But we could be the first to actually see a corporation get a capital punishment.

    That alone would make the whole trial worth while.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  9. Re:HA HA by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm always in favor of seeing celebrity gossip "news" sites in pain. Honestly, who gives a fuck about what time Tom Cruise took a shit last night? If you read celebrity news because it gives you something to gossip to your friends about, then you are a piece of shit. This is (even if it's not gossip) by far the worst form of "journalism" that exists, and people have to have no life at all and/or a huge inferiority complex to even care about it.

  10. Re:3 Fucks Given by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    So you are supporting the #Fappening? Or is it only wrong when it happen to women?

  11. That's before punitive... by Khyber · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the Hulkster hits the punitive jackpot, the total could be as high as $460M.

    That's an utter death blow to Gawker.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:That's before punitive... by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But on the other side. There is a conceivable avenue thorough which Hogan can currently expect payment of his legal winnings. But if he is awarded much more, Gawker just files for bankruptcy, it as a cooperation is destroyed and 99% of their worth (which was always imaginary) goes up in smoke, and maybe Hogan gets a million of two when their office chairs are sold in auction and the couple hundred thousands in operating funds are transferred over to him. Gawker does not have $300 million in gold in their basement, they have a name that is worth money, but if their debts get anywhere near their net worth then it is no longer a viable business and is worthless.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    2. Re:That's before punitive... by timholman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gawker does not have $300 million in gold in their basement, they have a name that is worth money, but if their debts get anywhere near their net worth then it is no longer a viable business and is worthless.

      I doubt Hogan cares as much about getting all the money as he does about seeing Gawker (and Nick Denton) suffer. Watching Gawker go bankrupt, while still having Denton personally on the hook for millions of dollars, would probably be a completely satisfactory outcome to Hogan.

      Gawker and its subsidiary websites (e.g. Jezebel) are festering boils on the backside of the Internet. Denton has helped nurture the culture of "trial by Internet outrage", "guilty until proven innocent", and "due process only applies to people I approve of" that permeates the world today. I can think of no possible way that the world will be worse off by putting every Gawker site out of business, and Nick Denton in the poorhouse.

  12. Re:3 Fucks Given by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you are stupid enough to get recorded fucking

    Do you even understand the concept of a secret recording? The point of a secret recording is that people caught by the recording device have no idea that they are being recorded, which makes it impossible for them to give consent to be recorded.

    This is like saying that Erin Andrews' is at fault for herself being secretly recorded in her hotel room. Erin is the sports reporter that recently won a law suit against Marriott over secretly created nude footage. A hotel employee told her stalker what room she was staying in, then offering to put him in the adjacent room, whereupon he used a special drill bit to create an pinhole opening in the wall for a pinhole camera, and a hacksaw to alter the peephole in her door.

  13. Re:If you don't want your sex tape on the internet by sjames · · Score: 2

    No. Gawker knew damned well that it wasn't news or at all in the public interest to post it without permission. They did it hoping to give themselves a big boost. Even the Enquirer knows better than that.

    There is plenty of blame to go around, but it was Gawker that took the availability from a small circle of people to the whole damned internet.

  14. Re:Help! I've Been Colonized And I Can't Get Up! by binarylarry · · Score: 2

    No one expects the SUPREME COURT!

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  15. Re: 3 Fucks Given by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

    Victim-blaming is the worst sort of lazy thinking. I'm not gonna sweep my room for bugs every night, and nobody should have to. Apologizing for illicit voyeurism is just creepy.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  16. What is Fair for Personal Damages by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

    Setting aside the whole professional damages area, what is fair for personal damages? Does a poor person get less because money is worth more to them? $10,000 is a shit load of money to me, that is the number that popped into my head as fair for breach of privacy and emotional distress. But to someone worth millions, who goes to $10,000 a plate dinners, obviously emotional distress is worth more to them. They might pay millions to avoid the leaking of a sex tape, while someone who makes $20K a year obviously would not. So are the emotions of rich people actually worth more than the emotions of poor people? What would be a fair way to put that into law?

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  17. Wrongfully imprisoned people get far less by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think these amounts awarded to Hogan and Erin Andrews (TV reporter secretly video recorded nude in her hotel room) are excessive when people who are wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit get fractions of that amount after serving many years in prison.

    This guy (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18715007/) wrongfully convicted of a rape he didn't commit was imprisoned for 18 years and only got $5 million.

    And Hogan gets $115 million and Andrews got $55 million? If you use the $5 million figure for false imprisonment, Hogan would have to have been imprisoned for 415 years to justify that amount, Andrews 198 years.

    Don't get me wrong, both Hogan and Andrews were wronged, but to what extent were their lives ruined the same way being convicted of rape and losing decades of your life to a prison sentence? Hogan's career as anything but somebody famous for being famous is basically over anyway, and I seriously doubt any of his celebrity has been damaged by viewing him having sex.

    Andrews cried crocodile tears on the stand, but how believable is that considering she apparently has no problem continuing to be on TV (new contract, even!)? She's only on TV because of her sex appeal to male sports fans and her entire career since high school has been based around being basically an eye candy accessory (being a cheerleader in high school and college). If anything, her complaint boils down to overexposure, and whatever loss of her allure occurs because now we've seen her naked. She wasn't even caught do anything of the embarrassing "fappening" poses, either, just walking around her hotel room.

    I think $5 million probably isn't enough for someone who was jailed for 18 years, although you can probably make some kind of lost earnings argument that is at least grounded in reality. Hogan and Andrews? I can't even begin to see the justification.

    1. Re:Wrongfully imprisoned people get far less by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ... imprisoned for 18 years and only got $5 million ...

      First, it's a government department paying for the shitty/dishonest behaviour of some prosecuting attorney. Second, after years in prison the wrongfully punished can't afford a good attorney. Normal civil cases don't have these problems. While the government likes to cut a my-'bad'-but-no-fine deal with some corporate legal department, a civil plaintiff wants a measurable result and gets it because juries tend to dislike corporate management.

      ... can't even begin to see the justification.

      This is why most countries don't allow punitive fines in civil suits, which keeps the rewards for litigation 'manageable'.

    2. Re:Wrongfully imprisoned people get far less by swb · · Score: 2

      There are very few "sports reporters" that one could take seriously as actual journalists. I'd grant ex-pro players who actually have experience playing the sport they "report" on some kind of status as experts in their field, but what expertise does Andrews bring to the table?

      Her only sports experience is as a cheerleader. As far as I can tell, her role is on-field "interviewer" where the talent in question is talking into a camera and holding a microphone. Maybe that makes her some kind of a journalist, but not exactly the kind of "journalism" that requires an awful lot of analytical skill or implies she has some kind of depth in her field. It's extremely hard to say she was hired for an encyclopedic knowledge of football or some other sport.

      It seems much more likely she was hired for reasons that had nothing to do with her knowledge or journalism. More like "we want more women to watch sports, so we'll add women reporters" or worse, "men like to look at pretty women, so we'll add some pretty women".

      Now she has a claim for her experience being surreptitiously recorded in the nude, but is it actually in the millions of dollars? What kind of *damages* did she actually suffer? She didn't suffer damage to her career (she actually got a newer, better contract after the incident), she doesn't seem to bear any kind of emotional scars or shame so intense that she has had to retire from public exposure. And she is good looking, too, so it's not like she was humiliated over it because she was fat or unappealing.

      If anything the "damage" is mostly the validation that she's on TV principally because she's attractive and has sex appeal. I also wonder if the "damage" is somehow tied to the fact that being a sex symbol requires a certain amount of forbidden fruit / unobtainium. Once the genie is out of the bottle and she's been seen naked, does it remove some of that allure? It wouldn't surprise me in the world of image and fame if that kind of cynical attitude wasn't actually driving this.

      Whatever it is, it's not $55 million in damages unless she says "well, I was going to collect $25 million to be nude" in a movie or magazine, but they cancelled after the pictures were on the internet because it was no longer new or novel. I'd buy that -- that's an actual loss of income potential.

  18. Re:Go HULK HOGAN! by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    Remember Thunder in Paradise? He's that guy.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  19. So long, Gawker Media! by ArylAkamov · · Score: 2

    I won't miss these hypocritical pieces of shit.

    I don't know what is worse: That they refused to take the sex tape of Terry down (Hulk Hogan) but at the same time condemned the leaked pictures of female celebrities during "The Fappening", or that they actually tried to invoke the Holocaust and "FREE SPEECH!" during the trial.

    Kind of ironic since this is the same media company spewing "HATE SPEECH IS NOT FREE SPEECH" line.

    http://nypost.com/2016/03/07/g...

    Let them burn.

  20. Re:Help! I've Been Colonized And I Can't Get Up! by CCarrot · · Score: 2

    The stock is a share in the corporation, so if the corporation has no net assets and is dissolving, then the stock is worthless.

    Said another way, the stockholders get paid last (after creditors) when a corporation dissolves.

    Ah yes, that's right. A stock is only 'worth' as much as someone is willing to pay for it.

    Okay then, new proposal: to hold voting stock, a person would need to maintain in escrow personal funds equivalent to the highest share price over the last 12 months. These funds would need to be held in a bond or something equally secure (i.e., they can't be 'held' in more of the corporation's shares) and would then be surrendered to creditors et al if the corporation went under. The value of the held funds may not match the current share value over time, but at least it's something, a personal commitment to the well-being of the company they want to help govern.

    --
    "I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
  21. Re:HA HA by KGIII · · Score: 2

    You do realize that you, and a whole lot of other readers, are being trolled - right? As in, trolled by multiple parties - each taking a poke in step, and you're falling for it... Yes, those sites are just giving you a reason to be pissed. They know it pisses you off. They know it brings them eyeballs. They know it's lucrative and you fall for it every single time.

    I swear, Pavlov had a point. Do you not fucking notice the bell any longer?

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."