5 ms·

It was intent to harm through lying. I'm not sure why that feels scary, seems pretty right in line with defamation in general. The truth is an absolute defens

It was intent to harm through lying. I'm not sure why that feels scary, seems pretty right in line with defamation in general. The truth is an absolute defense in defamation, so the scary result is what? Willfully lying to harm people is not protected? To take it a step further, if the person being lied about is a public figure, lying enjoys even more protections (you basically have to have the smoking "I'm lying about this" email for a public figure to prove defamation).

lolinder 3y ago
> It was intent to harm through lying. I'm not sure why that feels scary, seems pretty right in line with defamation in general. Not in the US. If no harm is done, there's no defamation, harm being done is part of the definition: > To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation
- cogman10 3y ago
  The jury found some harm done (1 dollars worth) and then issued punitive damages because of the intent to harm. Punitive damages are for when a judge/jury feels the conduct of one of the party's was bad. Conduct includes things like trying to damage someone's reputation. Again, I just fall to see what's scary here. Don't plan on lying about someone and your golden.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Punitive damages are typically capped at a 4:1 ratio to the actual damages. 10:1 is suspect, and even the extreme cases that go all the way to the Supreme Court are 500:1. This is 1m:1, 2000 times the most extreme cases (which the Supreme Court usually throws out).
    - croes 3y ago
      >The code is more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules. >The District of Columbia does not cap either compensatory or punitive damages, and the collateral source rule applies. https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/insurance-laws-and-products/762574/skys-the-limit-a-50-state-survey-of-damages-caps-and-the-collateral-source-rule https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/insurance-laws-and-produ...
      - lolinder 3y ago
        Whether there's a cap on the monetary amount of damages is a separate question from whether there's a maximum ratio between the two. Supreme Court rulings on the ratio are binding everywhere in the US, so state-by-state differences in other aspects of the law aren't relevant to the question.
        cogman10 3y ago
        The supreme court has never put a cap on punitives and in fact, for egregious conduct they've affirmed that no ratio applies. [1] In fact, if anything it looks like the supreme court has basically left everything to be determined in a case by case basis. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXO_Production_Corp._v._Alliance_Resources_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXO_Production_Corp._v._Allian.... (Note, there's a period at the end here that HN is removing)
        lolinder 3y ago
        Yes, and that was not a defamation case. There's no chance on this earth that if this makes it to the Supreme Court the court will rule that a 1m:1 ratio is acceptable in a speech case (regardless of the political composition of the court at the time), and if they did it would represent a major step backward for free speech in the US. After TXO, the Supreme Court wrote this in BMW, Inc. v. Gore where a similar 500:1 ratio was at stake (and was overturned) [0]: > The $2 million in punitive damages awarded to Dr. Gore by the Alabama Supreme Court is 500 times the amount of his actual harm as determined by the jury. Moreover, there is no suggestion that Dr. Gore or any other BMW pur- chaser was threatened with any additional potential harm by BMW’s nondisclosure policy. The disparity in this case is thus dramatically greater than those considered in Haslip and TXO. > Once again, “we return to what we said . . . in Haslip: ‘We need not, and indeed we cannot, draw a mathematical bright line between the constitutionally acceptable and the constitutionally unacceptable that would fit every case. We can say, however, that [a] general concer[n] of reasonableness . . . properly enter[s] into the constitutional calculus.’ ” Id., at 458 (quoting Haslip, 499 U. S., at 18). In most cases, the ratio will be within a constitutionally acceptable range, and remittitur will not be justified on this basis. When the ratio is a breathtaking 500 to 1, however, the award must surely “raise a suspicious judicial eyebrow.” When a "suspicious judicial eyebrow" gets raised in a speech case in the US, the plaintiff has already lost. [0] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/559/case.pdf https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/559/case.pdf
ajb 3y ago
It sounds to me like the jury felt that the harm was to third parties. Which isn't actually what the law says - the harm is supposed to be to the one defamed. This is a problem because on the one hand, the jury should not have based its award on harm to third parties, because that would not have properly been argued before it. But it also means that defamation is not adequate to defend science, where most of the harm of attacking science is towards third parties. I'd quite like to see lying in public life punished more harshly, because it is in fact corrosive to both public and private life. But it's going to be hard to frame 'harm to third parties' well, since it potentially covers a lot of political speech.

lolinder 3y ago

> It was intent to harm through lying. I'm not sure why that feels scary, seems pretty right in line with defamation in general. Not in the US. If no harm is done, there's no defamation, harm being done is part of the definition: > To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation

cogman10 3y ago
The jury found some harm done (1 dollars worth) and then issued punitive damages because of the intent to harm. Punitive damages are for when a judge/jury feels the conduct of one of the party's was bad. Conduct includes things like trying to damage someone's reputation. Again, I just fall to see what's scary here. Don't plan on lying about someone and your golden.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Punitive damages are typically capped at a 4:1 ratio to the actual damages. 10:1 is suspect, and even the extreme cases that go all the way to the Supreme Court are 500:1. This is 1m:1, 2000 times the most extreme cases (which the Supreme Court usually throws out).
  - croes 3y ago
    >The code is more what you'd call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules. >The District of Columbia does not cap either compensatory or punitive damages, and the collateral source rule applies. https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/insurance-laws-and-products/762574/skys-the-limit-a-50-state-survey-of-damages-caps-and-the-collateral-source-rule https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/insurance-laws-and-produ...
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Whether there's a cap on the monetary amount of damages is a separate question from whether there's a maximum ratio between the two. Supreme Court rulings on the ratio are binding everywhere in the US, so state-by-state differences in other aspects of the law aren't relevant to the question.
      - cogman10 3y ago
        The supreme court has never put a cap on punitives and in fact, for egregious conduct they've affirmed that no ratio applies. [1] In fact, if anything it looks like the supreme court has basically left everything to be determined in a case by case basis. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXO_Production_Corp._v._Alliance_Resources_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TXO_Production_Corp._v._Allian.... (Note, there's a period at the end here that HN is removing)
        lolinder 3y ago
        Yes, and that was not a defamation case. There's no chance on this earth that if this makes it to the Supreme Court the court will rule that a 1m:1 ratio is acceptable in a speech case (regardless of the political composition of the court at the time), and if they did it would represent a major step backward for free speech in the US. After TXO, the Supreme Court wrote this in BMW, Inc. v. Gore where a similar 500:1 ratio was at stake (and was overturned) [0]: > The $2 million in punitive damages awarded to Dr. Gore by the Alabama Supreme Court is 500 times the amount of his actual harm as determined by the jury. Moreover, there is no suggestion that Dr. Gore or any other BMW pur- chaser was threatened with any additional potential harm by BMW’s nondisclosure policy. The disparity in this case is thus dramatically greater than those considered in Haslip and TXO. > Once again, “we return to what we said . . . in Haslip: ‘We need not, and indeed we cannot, draw a mathematical bright line between the constitutionally acceptable and the constitutionally unacceptable that would fit every case. We can say, however, that [a] general concer[n] of reasonableness . . . properly enter[s] into the constitutional calculus.’ ” Id., at 458 (quoting Haslip, 499 U. S., at 18). In most cases, the ratio will be within a constitutionally acceptable range, and remittitur will not be justified on this basis. When the ratio is a breathtaking 500 to 1, however, the award must surely “raise a suspicious judicial eyebrow.” When a "suspicious judicial eyebrow" gets raised in a speech case in the US, the plaintiff has already lost. [0] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/559/case.pdf https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/559/case.pdf

ajb 3y ago

It sounds to me like the jury felt that the harm was to third parties. Which isn't actually what the law says - the harm is supposed to be to the one defamed. This is a problem because on the one hand, the jury should not have based its award on harm to third parties, because that would not have properly been argued before it. But it also means that defamation is not adequate to defend science, where most of the harm of attacking science is towards third parties. I'd quite like to see lying in public life punished more harshly, because it is in fact corrosive to both public and private life. But it's going to be hard to frame 'harm to third parties' well, since it potentially covers a lot of political speech.