Gawker's appeal filed: seeks to relieve Nick Denton of punitive damages

Gawker's team of expensive lawyers have filed motion to reverse the $25.1 million in punitive damages as well as an appeal against Terry Bollea, in Florida. No surprise there, since Gawker's Nick Denton has stated they will appeal, and they will win, because Hulk said the N-word on some other tape nobody (except the FBI?) has seen yet. The Associated Press & pals have filed to unseal all judicial records in Hulk vs Gawker trial, so perhaps we'll see these tapes soon.

“Gawker is now beginning the process of challenging the jury’s verdict in a trial where key evidence was wrongly withheld and the jury was not properly instructed on the Constitutional standards for newsworthiness. So we expect to be fully vindicated. And even if the verdict were to stand, there is no justification for awarding tens of millions of dollars never seen by victims of death and serious injuries.”

"Never seen by victims of death and serious injuries..." Isn't this a fallacy of relative privation? A false equivalence.

At WWD.com there's more: "Citing the heavy-handed verdict, an overly “passionate” and “prejudiced” jury and an “improper closing argument,” which “undermined the fairness of the trial,” Gawker asked the court for a new trial."

Did you hear that folks? The Jury was upset with Gawker for publishing sex tapes (and the Jury learned this was not the only time), so we have to have a new trial. We have to teach the jury the "Constitutional standards for newsworthiness", which according to Gawkers lawyers include secretly created sex tapes. Gawker will argue that it was improper for the jury to determine what is 'newsworthy'. If secret/private sex tapes are "newsworthy", you can't have anti revenge-porn laws designed to shut down websites that publish nude & sexual photos & videos of everyone from Hollywood starlets to some random ex-girlfriend who is semi-famous on Twitter. Pretty much. All the publisher of that site has to do is claim "newsworthiness". And if you watched along, the argument wasn't the sex tapes newsworthiness, but about an individuals right to privacy - even if they were a celebrity. And like the jury learned, Gawker does this to totally unknown people as well, a woman who was raped in a bathroom stall, a random couple at an ad agency, and they would if it was celebrity kids as young as 4. It'll certainly be interesting to see how this pans out.

In a separate motion requesting a new trial, Gawker’s attorneys seek to reverse the $115 million judgment, which if the Web site is forced to pay, would likely bankrupt the media firm, whose assets amount to $83 million.


“Based on those numbers, any award of punitive damages against any of the defendants would be ruinous in light of the compensatory damages already awarded,” court papers said.


The screenshot is from This CNN Interview with Nick Denton about the trial.

Previous on HulkvsGawk:
Gawker brought back bullying - then removes post against editorial staff's wishes 18th July 2015
Sex, Wrestling and Mussolini: Gawker's Toxic Anti-Journalism Needs To Stop 11 Mar 2016
Hulk Hogan vs Gawker trial: yelling "racist" at the top of your lungs is not a defense. 17 Mar 2016
Jury awards Hulk Hogan 115 million in Gawker trial 18 Mar 2016.
The Associated Press et al file to unseal all judicial records in Hulk vs Gawker trial 22nd March 2016
Nick Denton fires back: We will win on appeal because Hulk is a racist (pretty much) 23rd March 2015.

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