Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million Dollars in Gawker Lawsuit

Gyrick

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Recently, my Facebook feed exploded with this thread's headline.

New York Times Story Main Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/business/media/gawker-hulk-hogan-verdict.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

New York Times Archived Link:
http://archive.is/YvVK0

While I do have an opinion on the subject, I'm curious on what other people think about the outcome (I'd rather the discussion at least start off neutral instead of being swayed by OP opinion). Regardless of which side that you fall on, I think that this is a pretty important case that could greatly affect the field of digital journalism.

Thoughts?
 

Ravinoff

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Anything that weakens the Gawker empire is a plus in my book. Haven't been following this case in particular, but the faster their reprehensible brand of "journalism" gets shut down, the better.
 

tippy2k2

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The two Gawker defendants, Mr. Denton and Mr. Daulerio, testified during the trial, as did its former managing editor, Emma Carmichael. All three maintained that the video of Mr. Bollea was a matter of public concern and not a gratuitous exercise in voyeurism.
Just like with the Erin Andrews case, I am perfectly fine with such a huge amount being awarded, especially when THIS is their defense. "He's famous! Therefore it is our right, NO!, our DUTY to post a video of him porking this chick!".

Companies need to be held responsible for what they throw out there and you need it to be a big enough hit that other companies will see it and stay on the right side of the line. Unless there's something big I'm missing in this case, I have zero issues with this.
 

Asclepion

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It's 115 million dollars compensatory, and the jury wants to award punitive damages on top of that.

Gawker is fucking done. All of their investors are going to jump ship.
 

Thaluikhain

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That is a lot of money.

However, what they did was flat out wrong, and they should be in strife.
 

Andy Shandy

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Sucks that good journalists like Patrick Klepek and Jason Schreier will likely find themselves out of a job because of something that was absolutely nothing to do with them. Plus not to mention that by most accounts Hulk Hogan seems to be a racist, politicking piece of shit.

Buttttttttttt...it absolutely looks to be the right verdict.
 

Disco Biscuit

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I don't know about the amount, but Gawker wouldn't be in a position to get fucked by the law if they hadn't so openly and repeatedly scorned it. It's not like just everyone is getting this kind of judgment levied against them, especially outside of large personal injury, medical malpractice, or fines. In the end, if this is what the jury who heard all of the facts of the case decided was a proper amount, I'm willing to believe them.

It's weird though, because FUCK that racist hot dog, but he still deserves his privacy.
 

chadachada123

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Asclepion said:
It's 115 million dollars compensatory, and the jury wants to award punitive damages on top of that.

Gawker is fucking done. All of their investors are going to jump ship.
The key thing here, that I find truly hilarious, is that Hogan only asked for $100 million total, yet the jury keeps stacking more and more onto the total.

Something about that trial must have led the jury to believe that Gawker deserves to be ripped to shreds. I am finding it very difficult to have any sort of sympathy for them.

That it might mean the end of Jezebel and Kotaku is just icing on this incredibly delicious cake.
 

Disco Biscuit

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chadachada123 said:
Asclepion said:
It's 115 million dollars compensatory, and the jury wants to award punitive damages on top of that.

Gawker is fucking done. All of their investors are going to jump ship.
The key thing here, that I find truly hilarious, is that Hogan only asked for $100 million total, yet the jury keeps stacking more and more onto the total.

Something about that trial must have led the jury to believe that Gawker deserves to be ripped to shreds. I am finding it very difficult to have any sort of sympathy for them.

That it might mean the end of Jezebel and Kotaku is just icing on this incredibly delicious cake.
Jezebel and Kotaku are Gawker media? HAHA! Icing and cake indeed.
 

SlumlordThanatos

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Andy Shandy said:
Sucks that good journalists like Patrick Klepek and Jason Schreier will likely find themselves out of a job because of something that was absolutely nothing to do with them. Plus not to mention that by most accounts Hulk Hogan seems to be a racist, politicking piece of shit.

Buttttttttttt...it absolutely looks to be the right verdict.
I'm sure the few good human beings that they employ will find jobs in their respective fields.

And yeah. Hulk Hogan is a bit of prick. Doesn't mean that he deserves to have his private life posted on the Internet by some assholes who take pleasure in ruining other people's lives with baseless gossip.

It pleases me to see Nick Denton and the rest of Gawker get what they deserve, and then some.

EDIT: Confused Jason Scherier with someone else. Removed the relevant part of the post.
 

anthony87

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chadachada123 said:
Asclepion said:
It's 115 million dollars compensatory, and the jury wants to award punitive damages on top of that.

Gawker is fucking done. All of their investors are going to jump ship.
The key thing here, that I find truly hilarious, is that Hogan only asked for $100 million total, yet the jury keeps stacking more and more onto the total.

Something about that trial must have led the jury to believe that Gawker deserves to be ripped to shreds. I am finding it very difficult to have any sort of sympathy for them.
This is pure speculation but I've seen it said that the higher amount being awarded may be partly due to the fact that Gawker were told by a judge to remove the article that kicked all this off and while the video was taken down from their site, they refused the order to remove the written portion.
 

Musou Tensei

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Andy Shandy said:
Sucks that good journalists like Patrick Klepek and Jason Schreier...
They are garbage.


This has to be the final nail in Gawker's coffin, I wish it would have been Gamergate, which already cost them a lot of money, but whatever brother.
 

DudeistBelieve

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Sep 9, 2010
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Good. Fuck these assholes. There is nothing journalistic about publishing a sex tape, it's just a dick move.

Jamie Walton of the Wayne Foundation had a pretty savage tweet though: "Hey @patrickklepek, I'm so sorry that this @Gawker settlement will put you out of your @Kotaku job!!! ...Not really, burn you misquoting pos" (https://twitter.com/JamieWalton/status/710974003213631488)

So very metal.

NXNW said:
Ravinoff said:
Anything that weakens the Gawker empire is a plus in my book. Haven't been following this case in particular, but the faster their reprehensible brand of "journalism" gets shut down, the better.
This is looking like it's probably going to weaken them in the same way that a knife to the heart weakens a person.

OT: On one hand, screw Gawker. On the other hand, $115 seems steep, even assuming lost future earnings and punitive damages. If this were about half the amount, I would have no reservations at all. Still, the reason it's so high is because of a pattern of bad behavior established by Gawker, so this is not a harsh ruling in a vacuum.
He did, legit lose his career over this though. Because they leaked that audio of him saying that racist shit, WWE fired him from his personality role and they are very unlikely to hire him back, at least for the forseeable future. And it's not like he can go to any other wrestling promotion and earn the same kind of money. He can't work anymore, his only value was as being a living relic of a by gone era of the sport.

Plus... factor in lawyers, taxes, Hogan's ex wife, and that kid on life support he pays, Hogan will be lucky to walk away with about 10 million if that.
 

Redryhno

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chadachada123 said:
Asclepion said:
It's 115 million dollars compensatory, and the jury wants to award punitive damages on top of that.

Gawker is fucking done. All of their investors are going to jump ship.
The key thing here, that I find truly hilarious, is that Hogan only asked for $100 million total, yet the jury keeps stacking more and more onto the total.

Something about that trial must have led the jury to believe that Gawker deserves to be ripped to shreds. I am finding it very difficult to have any sort of sympathy for them.

That it might mean the end of Jezebel and Kotaku is just icing on this incredibly delicious cake.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have something to do with the "We'd release a 4-year old's sextape" statement that got jumbled about between being a joke and actually being serious the more questions that were asked.
NXNW said:
Asclepion said:
It's 115 million dollars compensatory, and the jury wants to award punitive damages on top of that.

Gawker is fucking done. All of their investors are going to jump ship.
Was that just compensatory? I don't know how they could imagine that his future, reputation, and anything else are worth that much. I thought that this included punitive damages, which at least made the number in the realm of something reasonable. I have to doubt that an appellate court is ever going to uphold this number.

In the end, he'll probably end up getting about a quarter of this judgement, punitive damages included. One thing is sure though, this is going to drag on forever if Gawker's investors stick around. If they bail, then he just gets whatever he can in the liquidation proceedings, which may be a lot, or may be bupkis.
Eh, the guy sorta got shafted in every sense of the word for what they did. Lost his job as a personality from the past, his legacy taken out of the Hall of Fame, nearly everything in his life was rendered moot by them going ahead with this because they saw the clicks and they STILL thought they did nothing wrong. I don't think anyone wants to see a company that devoid of morality to stay around to possibly do it again to someone that can't fight back.

And this is forgetting the last few years of them getting caught up in illegal(possibly hyperbole) and unethical shit.
 

Mikeybb

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Aug 19, 2014
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One thing that comes to mind in regard to this is the disparity in how Gawker views privacy of this kind.
I recollect they, or at least one of their sub-outfits, were very damning of leaked video or photos of a sexual nature in the past.
If this attitude upheld in all such cases, then this case would never have reached court.

On a personal level, I'm not too fond of this style of journalism.
Hell, I've seen far too much of it in paper form over in the UK throughout the years.
It just seems overly invasive.
I have to admit I'd probably have been a lot happier if Gawker hadn't have posted the video in the first place, though I suspect that might be the case for all involved now.

That said, I can't imagine what kind of entity Gawker would be if it didn't act on such stories.
Well, aside from a less hated one that is.
Scandal seems to be their thing.