# news article explains ow hbo shareholders could sue for damages over GOT season "fiasco" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 21, 2019, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275 "2019-05-21T08:28:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275/41 "2019-05-22T14:03:27Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Gimme a fucking break. It’s as though someone took a look at Rick & Morty fans and figured “We can throw a bigger hissy fit than THAT…” ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275/42 "2019-05-22T14:36:32Z")
If that happens I hope they get counter-sued and taken to the cleaners. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275/43 "2019-05-22T15:14:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, even setting aside the point about how it’s a work of art, and de gustibus and so on… If shareholders are suing over loss of value of their shares, just whom are they suing? If they’re shareholders, they have nobody to blame but themselves. HBO doesn’t have any extra money they can distribute to their shareholders, because the money they make, they’re _already_ distributing to shareholders, because that’s what shares are. This is a common criticism of shareholder lawsuits and it’s valid but, in fact, the shareholder class for a class action lawsuit will be people who held the stock during a certain period, not necessarily those who hold it today. For example, the proposed class might be investors who held the stock on the day that HBO/AT&T announced that the show would be ending, which is presumably when the stock price dropped to reflect this allegedly unjustifiable business mistake. Shareholders who sold after the announcement could still be part of the shareholder class because they would have received reduced prices on their sales. Any class action settlement or judgment money would come effectively from today’s shareholders. There would be a lot of overlap between the shareholders in the class and today’s shareholders but the two groups aren’t exactly the same. Additionally, many settlements are paid out of directors and officers insurance policies, which are generally paid for by the corporation. Obviously, all such premium payments ultimately come from the company being sued but the irony is that the only way for shareholders to get a return on those premium payments is to sue the company in a shareholder class action lawsuit. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275/44 "2019-05-22T15:54:01Z")
Things like this make me think society is stupid and awful but the I remember stuff like this happens over and over. When Seinfeld ended there was a month of stories like this and then the world moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275/45 "2019-05-22T16:16:16Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > do you think someones gonna attempt it? would you if you were them ? If, FSM forbid, I were one of them, I’d hope somebody would snap me out of it. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275/46 "2019-05-22T16:21:42Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ecks](#): > > So even though it’s ridiculous to sue over the Game of Thrones finale, would it be possible to make a misfire so bad that a lawsuit would be proper? Is an artistic decision always insulated from judgement in ways that other business decisions are not? Would they have a case if the finale ended with Bran waking up and discovering it was all a dream, or that it’s all a tabletop RPG session? Or filming the whole thing in someone’s backyard on a 1980s camcorder and improvising all the dialogue? I don’t see how anything short of proving that the whole thing was deliberately designed to fail (like _Springtime for Hitler_, but actually tanking like it was supposed to) would be a basis for legal action. Edit: ninja’d [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/news-article-explains-ow-hbo-shareholders-could-sue-for-damages-over-got-season-fiasco/834275.md?page=2)