They were asking for compensatory damages of $146M. There is no cap on compensatory damages. If you do eleventy billion dollars worth of damage to Widget Co., Widget Co. can and should be awarded eleventy billion in damages in their suit against you. Punitive damages are capped. The $40M number comes from a 10x compensatory damages formula after the $4M compensatory damage award was announced, though I’ve seen a lot of differing and contradictory information about the exact nature of this cap.
EDIT: I think I misread the post and it’s saying they were actually asking for mega punitive damages. I’m just confused.
Twitter thread in which an attorney who is licensed in Texas explains that punitive damages are capped at 2x(financial damages portion of compensatory damage award) + $750k, but it’s forbidden to tell the jury about this cap. Jury free to issue whatever number they want, but judge required by statute to reduce it to the amount determined by formula.
Later in the thread it’s suggested that $110k of the $4.1M is financial damages, and he revises the range to 0-$970k accordingly.
ETA: Unfortunately looks like on further examination the $110k might also be non-economic - it was for ‘injury to reputation’. So still $750k. But there still seems to be confusion about whether any economic damages were awarded - there are conflicting accounts.
Later later it was discussed that there are actually FOUR defendants (Jones, plus 3 companies he owns - InfoWars, InfoWars Health and Prison Planet TV) and the cap is per defendant. So it could be 4x that. Could be. Depends on how the judgement is apportioned.
If that Twitter thread is true, it is the most disappointing news I’ve heard since November 2016. That fucker should be taken for every last dime he couldn’t hide up his ass, and then those should have been hoovered out, too.
It would be interesting if - to take a slight tangent - Trump’s fondness of shell corporations ended up landing him with hundreds of duplicate pay-outs on his various trials.
If I was a lawyer opposing him, I’d try to rope every shell corp relevant in to the suit.
There’s still some hope. There are 3 (?) other cases in other states where Jones has also had default judgements against him, with damages yet to be awarded. Jurors in Connecticut or wherever might be in a more giving mood, and state rules about punitive damages vary.
Next month is the Connecticut trial to determine damages. It’s definitely not over. There is a lot more to come. And Jones is pretty screwed on all of them I think, now that his data is out there.
So on that note, the “two years worth of text messages” that this week’s plaintiff’s attorney got a hold of - can he just hand those right on over to the Connecticut plaintiff’s attorney? Are they in the “public domain” now?
I think that he’s the person in possession of them, and I don’t know what he’s allowed to do with the info now. Probably just about anything, I guess. He can’t publish them in a book and make money off that due to copyright law, and he was already asked to destroy any medical info (HIPAA of course) but otherwise, I guess it’s fair game. I’m sure that he can provide the info to the Connecticut plaintiff legal team on request, he’s in possession of evidence that is relevant to their case and they can request it of him. It was already reported that the Jan 6 Committee requested the info and he plans to comply.
Almost certainly not, after all this is info that someone wrote at some time, and they have at least copyright claims to it I’m sure (Jones and others). But that shouldn’t stop him from sharing it, just from profiting off of it. At least, that’s the impression I’m getting.
Think of it this way, if someone sends you an email, are you allowed to share that email with whoever you want to? In the vast majority of cases, sure. There are exceptions but generally you have it and you can forward it to whoever you want. I don’t see that this is any different.
So exactly how does the money get extracted from this odious toad and transferred to the plaintiffs? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the exact mechanics of that discussed.
Personally, I like to imagine something along the lines of a visit from Caddyshack’s Moose and Rocko, but I suspect that the actual procedures will be longer and more bureaucratic.
I couldn’t help it, so I held my nose and went to a Fox News article about the results to read comments and see what people said.
I was pleased to see that nobody was defending him. At least that was the good part. Some people were even flat-out slamming on him and saying he got what he deserved, even people claiming to be conservative and saying he doesn’t represent them.
I did see a number of people whining that the left does this kind of thing all the time, yet nobody goes after them, and it’s so unfair. Here’s a sample:
Meanwhile a liberal Federal judge did not allow Nick Sandmann (Covington school and Nathan Philips native American incident) law suit against news media go forward.Double Standard.