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Alex Jones just lost a lawsuit for defamation for claiming that Sandy Hook was a hoax and the reward was $965bil (after a previous $50mil verdict so its over a billion) for defamation and emotional damages. Jones is a kook, and his claim was both false, and outrageous; but I'm not 100 percent sure he even should have lost. Esp for the emotional damage part. I don't think people should be entitled to damages because they feel hurt by what you say. As far as the defamation part if he claimed particular people created the hoax then I can understand a loss of a defamation lawsuit, but if its just a general comment along the lines of "I think it's a hoax" I don't think he should face any legal penalty for it. And a billion dollars for spouting off some nonsense seems ridiculous to me.
I suspect that he will appeal (I understand he tried to appeal the previous case all the way up to the Supreme Court, who refused to accept the case), and that the case won't be overturned on appeal, but perhaps the damages will be reduced.
There was also some talk about harassment and death threats against people suing Jones. If it can be proven that Jones was behind it I suppose that could be ground for a lawsuit (and perhaps even criminal charges depending on the details), but that would be a separate issue than defamation or emotional distress over the original comment.
I dunno, setting aside the litigation specifics (the stuff about this being the product of a default judgment due to his refusal to comply with discovery requests etc.) I don't really have any objections. He dragged individual families who were not public figures through the mud in front of a massive audience, accusing them of lying about the deaths of their own children, in pursuit of some flagrantly delusional claims. Seriously messed up behavior and he deserves what he's getting. Yes the specific figure the jury came up with is disproportionate, but juries often do that when there's a sympathetic plaintiff, which is why even Antonin Scalia agreed with a substantive due process right of defendants to have judges knock excessive jury awards back down to the realm of reason, as will likely happen here too if Jones doesn't shit the bed again with his appeal. If the figure was awarded directly by a judge, I guess he's SOL subject to bankruptcy protections, but that's what you get for horribly and specifically defaming a huge group of innocent private families for years on end in front of a bizarrely large audience. Don't do that!
I was glad when the kid in Smirkgate was able (presumably) to drag cash out of the media organizations who defamed him during the summer fever dream of 2020, and I likewise don't feel bad for Jones here. Defamation has always been an exception to the first amendment, and unlike other putative exceptions for hate speech and the like I don't think it poses any kind of systemic risk to the right to voice opinions and ideas in public.
Smirkgate kid got all his cases dismissed for being "objectively unverifiable" so the media's response was just non-actionable opinions. Which means they're broad or vague enough that you can't objectively say they're false. Though he did settle with CNN and The Washington Post before the trial was dismissed so he got something.
Other kids at the school trying to file a suit pseudonymously had their case thrown out for being pseudonymous but it was also stated that it would have been dismissed anyway because of the same reason as above.
Source? This is internally inconsistent. Yes, CNN and WaPo settled--which means, they gave Nick some substantial amount of money, amount not publicly known. They would not have done so if his cases were dismissible.
Source? This is internally inconsistent. How can it be known that they gave him substantial amounts of money when the terms of the settlement are secret?
Because settlements are agreed to by both parties--a compromise. There would be no point for Nick and his attorneys to agree to a trivial settlement when they could go to trial instead and potentially win big. If the case was easily dismissible, CNN and WaPo would not have settled for any amount; they would have just filed a motion to dismiss and moved on.
Nick undoubtedly got a fair bit less than he was suing for, but still a substantial amount of money. That's how settlements work.
"Substantial" is probably low six figures. Once he had enough of a case to get to discovery, CNN and WaPo are interested in it going away even with a very high likelihood of success on their part. He certainly was not wearing a "I am a multi-millionaire" suit in his appearance during the RNC.
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