Jury awards Hulk Hogan $115M in Gawker sex tape lawsuit


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The retired wrestler Hulk Hogan was awarded $115 million in damages Friday by a Florida jury in an invasion of privacy case against Gawker.com over its publication of a sex tape.

 

The wrestler, known in court by his legal name, Terry G. Bollea, sobbed as the verdict was announced in late afternoon, according to people in the courtroom. The jury had considered the case for about six hours.

 

Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker and a defendant in the case, was found personally liable, as was Albert J. Daulerio, the site’s former editor in chief.

 

In his closing argument in the two-week trial, the wrestler’s lawyer delivered a lacerating attack on Gawker’s culture and guiding principles.

 

“It’s just porn,” the lawyer, Kenneth G. Turkel, told the six-person jury in St. Petersburg, Fla., considering the claim by the 62-year-old former wrestler that he was humiliated and emotionally shattered by Gawker’s 2012 publication of a secretly recorded video of him having sex with a friend’s wife.

 

In a statement after the verdict was delivered, Mr. Denton suggested that the jury did not hear all the facts. “We feel very positive about the appeal that we have already begun preparing, as we expect to win this case ultimately,” he said.

 

A lawyer for Gawker, Michael Sullivan, had disputed the plaintiff’s contentions at length in his closing argument, and said Mr. Bollea had repeatedly invited attention to his sex life and to the video at issue long before he decided to sue Gawker and its editors.

 

“He has chosen to seek the spotlight,” Mr. Sullivan said. “He has consistently chosen to put his private life out there.”

 

The case in Pinellas County Circuit Court was being closely watched for its potential effect on the unfettered arena of the Internet, where on some sites it is common practice to post salacious and intrusive content without regard, the plaintiff’s lawyer said, to people’s right to privacy.

 

Mr. Turkel took particular aim at a defense attorney’s contention that Gawker’s posting of the video was an act of journalism and was therefore protected under the First Amendment.

 

He maintained that had the site’s editors been operating under professional journalistic rules, they would have contacted Mr. Bollea to ask his permission to publish the video, or at least to warn him that they were going to do so. In any case, Mr. Turkel said, there was nothing newsworthy about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/business/media/gawker-hulk-hogan-verdict.html

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Friday, March 18, 2016 09:02PM

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. --

A jury has sided with ex-pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and awarded him $115 million in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker Media.

The jurors reached the decision Friday evening, less than six hours after they began deliberations. The trial lasted two weeks.

Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, sued Gawker for $100 million for posting a video in 2012 of him having sex with his former best friend's wife. Hogan contended it was a violation of his privacy.

Gawker's editors contended the video and an accompanying post was a newsworthy commentary on the ordinariness of celebrity sex videos.

 

http://abc11.com/news/jury-sides-with-hulk-hogan-in-his-sex-tape-lawsuit-/1252665/

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3 hours ago, Thomas the Tank Engine said:

Already posted:

 

 

 

In the wrong subforum IMO

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Meh... Sorry Hulkster, but if you didn't want your little peccadillo becoming public, then perhaps you shouldn't have porked your friends wife?

 

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  • 2 months later...
9 minutes ago, DocM said:

Aftermath of the Hilk Hogan laesuit, to be sold to Ziff Davis Publishing.  

 

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gawker-media-files-bankruptcy-171702043--finance.html

Bummer.  Hopefully they stick around, in their old form.  I quite like Gizmodo, Jalopnik and Lifehacker...don't really go to their other blogs though.  

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