5 ms·

Look up "nuclear verdicts". The unreasonably large dollar amount is intentional and not meant to reflect the real value of harm caused.

impossiblefork 2y ago
Yes, but a billion dollars. It's 30x the sale price of Minalyzer, a very cool Swedish firm which was bought by Veracio. It's a level where, when it is an international case, it makes sense for states to get involved with diplomatic pressure. Surely your legal system must be more reasonable than this, because if it's like this, how can it function?
- fenomas 2y ago
  It wasn't a billion dollars for a single thing, it was awards to 15 different defendants, ranging from ~30-120 million each. More importantly, you're missing that this was a default judgment - Jones didn't defend himself, so the award is kind of the theoretical maximum. The results aren't comparable to regular court cases where both sides make their case.
  - impossiblefork 2y ago
    Yes, but it's still the value of a whole town. A legal system must be robust even to weird or peculiar people who refuse to work with its rules and still produce reasonable results.
    - pavlov 2y ago
      Why should the system accommodate people who refuse to defend themselves? I understand that in a system like Russia where dissidents face made-up charges and their attorneys are harassed by the state. But Alex Jones isn’t in that kind of position at all. He has no problem getting legal representation. The default judgment basically means he admitted guilt by his refusal. That was his choice.
      - impossiblefork 2y ago
        Because such a system creates absurdities. There are always going to be crazy people and a system must be able to deal with them.
        maeil 2y ago
        This is dealing with them. It's just not dealing with them in a way that you like.
        ryandrake 2y ago
        The system is dealing with them: By imposing the maximum possible judgment.
    - fenomas 2y ago
      Nonsense - a legal system must apply the law. Also, Jones wasn't "weird or peculiar" - he repeatedly disobeyed and misled the court. This is like a soccer match where one team won by fifty goals, because the other team repeatedly committed fouls and then left the pitch, and you're arguing that the referee should disallow some of the goals because you feel in your gut that fifty is too many.
      - impossiblefork 2y ago
        It must give reasonable results, and a 1 billion judgement against individual over something like this is not. That procedure or rules have been followed is no reason to accept an absurd outcome. An absurd outcome is rather a reason to reject a set of rules or procedures.
        sp33k3rph433k 2y ago
        And this absurd outcome is partially due to a flagrant disregard for the sets of rules and procedures that came before this case. The Knowledge Fight podcast covers this case in its entirety and it's clear that Infowars et al. has toed the line of criminal to delay and deny justice to the victims. The legal system hit the end of the road and said "everything owed to the victims or everything Infowars has" and this is the result.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
But the ruling was for compensatory damages - that is, the compensate the victims. It wasn't a punitive damages - which would make more sense - basically "You don't get to have your infowars any more". Compensatory damages is making the claim that the sandy hook families actually suffered $1B in damages.

impossiblefork 2y ago

Yes, but a billion dollars. It's 30x the sale price of Minalyzer, a very cool Swedish firm which was bought by Veracio. It's a level where, when it is an international case, it makes sense for states to get involved with diplomatic pressure. Surely your legal system must be more reasonable than this, because if it's like this, how can it function?

fenomas 2y ago
It wasn't a billion dollars for a single thing, it was awards to 15 different defendants, ranging from ~30-120 million each. More importantly, you're missing that this was a default judgment - Jones didn't defend himself, so the award is kind of the theoretical maximum. The results aren't comparable to regular court cases where both sides make their case.
- impossiblefork 2y ago
  Yes, but it's still the value of a whole town. A legal system must be robust even to weird or peculiar people who refuse to work with its rules and still produce reasonable results.
  - pavlov 2y ago
    Why should the system accommodate people who refuse to defend themselves? I understand that in a system like Russia where dissidents face made-up charges and their attorneys are harassed by the state. But Alex Jones isn’t in that kind of position at all. He has no problem getting legal representation. The default judgment basically means he admitted guilt by his refusal. That was his choice.
    - impossiblefork 2y ago
      Because such a system creates absurdities. There are always going to be crazy people and a system must be able to deal with them.
      - maeil 2y ago
        This is dealing with them. It's just not dealing with them in a way that you like.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        The system is dealing with them: By imposing the maximum possible judgment.
  - fenomas 2y ago
    Nonsense - a legal system must apply the law. Also, Jones wasn't "weird or peculiar" - he repeatedly disobeyed and misled the court. This is like a soccer match where one team won by fifty goals, because the other team repeatedly committed fouls and then left the pitch, and you're arguing that the referee should disallow some of the goals because you feel in your gut that fifty is too many.
    - impossiblefork 2y ago
      It must give reasonable results, and a 1 billion judgement against individual over something like this is not. That procedure or rules have been followed is no reason to accept an absurd outcome. An absurd outcome is rather a reason to reject a set of rules or procedures.
      - sp33k3rph433k 2y ago
        And this absurd outcome is partially due to a flagrant disregard for the sets of rules and procedures that came before this case. The Knowledge Fight podcast covers this case in its entirety and it's clear that Infowars et al. has toed the line of criminal to delay and deny justice to the victims. The legal system hit the end of the road and said "everything owed to the victims or everything Infowars has" and this is the result.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

But the ruling was for compensatory damages - that is, the compensate the victims. It wasn't a punitive damages - which would make more sense - basically "You don't get to have your infowars any more". Compensatory damages is making the claim that the sandy hook families actually suffered $1B in damages.