Fair to say, but I believe they were testing the waters again and again just to find a venue that was favorable, undermining whatever notion the original commenter was attempting to conjure about the definitive nature of legality here.

If the legality of a case like this is also supposed as a proxy for the (universal) morality of the verdict and the arguments Thiel likes to make about Gawker's journalistic sins it certainly seems like a federal suit would have been a more appropriate arena for proving the point.