Comment by BuyMyBitcoins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BuyMyBitcoins | Hacker News Reader

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The whole situation with Alex Jones has undermined the confidence I have with our court system and our government. Initially I thought there was some Mandela Effect going on because I could have sworn I remembered Alex Jones losing a Sandy Hook civil suit case multiple times before. Turns out, he’s being sued multiple times by different sets of parents and from what I understand, this latest case isn’t the last one.

Regardless of how justified this feels, I nevertheless worry that using the civil court system in this manner sets a dangerous precedent.

Firstly, because this is a civil matter and not a criminal one, there is no protection against double jeopardy. He can keep getting sued over and over for the same thing. Indeed, it really looks like these parents/their attorneys are out to destroy Alex Jones through lawsuit after lawsuit.

Second, fining someone a billion dollars is just ludicrous. Yes, I know he is not worth that much and will ultimately end up paying far less. But the mere idea that such a large fine was issued undermines confidence that the restitution is in any way reasonable. Not just because the number is so detached from reality, but because such sums look like the financial equivalent of the death penalty.

I am very worried about how civil suits can be used to go after people. To me at least, there need to be additional protections along the lines of what we have in the Eighth Amendment. What I’m seeing with these Sandy Hook cases feels like cruel and unusual punishment. Also keep in mind that you do not have a right to an attorney in suits like these and you have to pay out of pocket.

It is not unreasonable to think lawfare like this will be used against other people in the future.

> Firstly, because this is a civil matter and not a criminal one, there is no protection against double jeopardy. He can keep getting sued over and over for the same thing.

Not by the same people, though. If he damaged ten people, he might owe damages to each of those ten people. That doesn't sound like a problem to me.

> Second, fining someone a billion dollars is just ludicrous.

It seems like your argument is that the sum is simply too large, and that the specifics of the case are irrelevant.

This seems dangerous to me. If someone does actually cause that amount of damage, why should they not be civilly liable? Surely it depends on the specifics of the case to determine if they did cause that much damage or not?

Otherwise, does everyone just get to cause as much damage as they like but have a cap on what they are held responsible for? That doesn't seem right to me. If someone wants to get involved in a course of conduct which can cause terrible damages to others, then they should also be responsible for that.

Do you truly think Alex Jones's speech inflicted a billion dollars worth of damage?

I'd love to see an itemized bill demonstrating that. If he actually did cause that much real damage, sure, it would be fair. But I can't possibly conceive how he would have caused even $100k in real damages, much less a billion. It's equally, if not more dangerous, to fine people ludicrously large, arbitrary amounts of money because they spoke something that went against public opinion.

How much do you think being stalked, harassed, and threatened is worth?

Not a billion dollars, certainly. And did Alex Jones himself do any or even actively encourage any of the stalking, harrasment, or threatening? If he did, I'd say he's certainly much more liable (still not a billion dollars worth of liability) but I've yet to see where he's done either. He made videos, and some deranged lunatics decide to act on the information in those videos.

Are you omitting intentionally that he has made profit from this, so it is a way to mine money from other suffering and from brainwashing idiots, he has a big profitable company, I think the judge evaluated the guys profits, so if he was a random idiot on the street that harass people he would not have got such a giant fine since the random idiot did not made giant profits. \\

I do not see why a real free speech advocate would protect he "right to harass/defame others for profit".

That’s what the jury evaluated and decided. Looks like you have an issue with the jury system itself.

The US is an outlier in letting juries hand down such massive damages awards. In most other common law countries, the jury only decides which side wins, and damages are up to the judge-and judges generally show a preference for more reasonable amounts.

tl:dr; The amount a Jury awards in damages is not actually what the loser pays.

Juries can award w/e they want but the judge still has discretion in reducing the damages (ex. one of McDonalds hot coffee incidents [1]).

Not a foreman, but I believe juries don't get instructed as to what the maximum amount they can legally award is and so the judge to then reduce it. (ex. Depp vs Heard [2])

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depp_v._Heard

Such a system likely still results in higher damages payouts - even after the judge has reduced the jury’s amount - than leaving the issue of damages entirely up to the judge would; which may go some way to explaining why average damages awards (even if we only consider the final amounts after all appeals are finalised) are significantly higher in the US than in other common law countries.

>”Looks like you have an issue with the jury system itself.”

Wanting to reform an aspect of the jury system does not invalidate it as a whole.

We have a concept in our courts called "punitive damages", which exists specifically to punish someone beyond the scope of the "real" damage caused.

Ah neat, I'd heard that term before but didn't know it's real meaning. Thanks! How are punitive damages determined though? Surely there's still some methodology to follow when calculating them, I don't see how any reasonable methology would have arrived at $1b.

Punitive damage calculations vary state to state. Some states cap (TX, where Jones first loss was suffered) based on a multiplier of the "real" damages. Some states don't. In states that don't, punitive damages can be "whatever the jury decides", and the goal is usually to punish outrageous behavior with outsized amounts.

Because there were 14 individual people, with each getting an individual settlement amount, it added up quickly.

Punitive damages have to be large enough to discourage the harmful behavior. That means they need to be scaled to the budget of the person doing the harm, not to the harm itself. Maybe the State should keep whatever of the punitive part seems too much larger than the actual damage.

The alternative is that the fine is just "cost of doing business". Rich people park any old place, any old time, and just pay their parking fines. OK for city government revenue, but bad for public safety, and worse for fairness and civic life.

> Do you truly think Alex Jones's speech inflicted a billion dollars worth of damage?

I urge you to read up on Alex's conduct before, during, and after the trial(s). He spent most of his time mocking the process, attacking the judge, and continuing to defame the parents while failing to comply with basic discovery in a timely way. He also hired incompetent legal representation[1] - probably because they shared his worldview.

I think if Alex had taken the lawsuit seriously and treated it with the gravitas most people would assign to a lawsuit like this, the judgement would be nowhere near $1B. He's his own worst enemy on this one.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alex-jones-lawyers-acci...

I think you're right, had his conduct been better then his outcome would also likely have been much better. That said, I still think the amount is ludicrous and unjustifiable. Even if he had had actively encouraged his followers to burn down the homes and beat up the vehicles of every sandy hook parent the damages wouldn't have reached anywhere near a tenth of the amount he was fine. And as it happens, he didn't do that. He caused emotional damage, and had a tertiary effect of some of his followers acting on their own in a deranged way, but 1 billion just is insane.

The courts are structured to be adversarial, so if I claim you owe me $1 million because of something you said, it is expected that you will vigorously defend yourself and through this process some compromise will be reached that will be more or less "just".

If the defendant fucks around instead of actually mounting a defence, of course the result is going to be a massive win for the plaintiffs. Do you expect the judge to step in and represent the interests of the defendant when the defendant seems uninterested in doing so himself? Alex had the money, connections, and profile to get a very good legal defence. He chose not to. I'm not really sure what you want the courts to do here.

Juries don't make good decisions about damages. This value will be down-adjusted significantly- I would expect it to be more like $50M eventually. Something that could be garnished in a finite time.

> if Alex had taken the lawsuit seriously and treated it with the gravitas most people would assign to a lawsuit like this, the judgement would be nowhere near $1B

What do you think it would have been?

I don't mind the "asshole tax" in courts, but I feel like it should be limited. The guy is an idiot, but all the more reason to judge him fairly.

$1B fine looks like a political decision (especially to his audience), and will probably give even more power to him.

>> Do you truly think Alex Jones's speech inflicted a billion dollars worth of damage?

> I urge you to read up on Alex's conduct before, during, and after the trial(s).

Solid point. Fairness and objective inquiries into damages be damned, if you don't kiss the ring, you deserve the worst.

"Hacker" News endorsing outrageous punishments for not bending over far enough. I, too, recall the portion of the Hacker Manifesto, which read:

  We are loyal subjects of the system, and we shall abide by 
  every rule of decorum which the King hath proclaimed. God 
  praise our rulers, who are wiser than all of us!

I believe it was RMS himself who said:

  We seek neither freedom, nor fairness. If someone wearing 
  black robes decrees something, you must bow down and 
  kiss their feet. It is thus written by St. Ignucious. Amen.

And from the notes of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club:

  Irreverence for Institute Authorities shall not be permitted.
  They are our betters, and we shall exclude anyone whosoever 
  shall trespass against their Virtuous Rules.

"Hacker" News is truly a blessed community. Thank you for the reminder that real "Hackers" are those who lick the boots of those who rule us, and that insufficiently enthusiastic licking is adequate justification for being destroyed.

Hack The Planet*!

[*: Provided the hacking is done in accordance with the dictates of our betters.]

They say the love of a child is priceless. You might think that priceless means worthless, but others can disagree; in a sense I agree with you that it's quite difficult to nail down. Perhaps the lesson is that one should be careful when doing intangible harm to others?

That seems like the definition of a slippery slope, and not the fallacy. How do you ever quantify "intangible harm". If I make a YouTube video and call a bunch of people peepee poopoo heads and they actually experience genuine emotional trauma from such an abhorrent act, am I then liable for paying them hundreds of millions?

I'm not saying that emotional damage isn't very real and devastating, but it's certainly not something on which our courts should base their outcomes. It's too subjective, not provable, and very difficult to quantify.

> How do you ever quantify "intangible harm"

You get a jury together and they decide. You (and Alex Jones) may not like it, but it's a well established system at this point.

I am not a lawyer, but I suspect if you asked one about your plan to go on YouTube and insult people, they'd advise against it. For one thing, YouTube might see it as a violation of their terms of service, and for another thing, you might be opening yourself up to litigation, which even if you won, could still be expensive.

As for your first point, I suspect the parents and their attorneys have decided to split the lawsuits up strategically. I do not know how civil suit reform could address something like this.

As for your second point, it is indeed true that I don’t think Alex Jones caused a billion dollars worth of damage.

I simply cannot envision the specifics of this case warranting a billion dollars of restitution. If this was a case about an environmental disaster it wouldn’t be an unreasonable sum. So, I’m not advocating for a hard cap on damages for all civil suits. But something does seem wrong when a judge can arrive at such an outlandishly large sum for punitive damages in a case like this.

Edit: Alex Jones caused harm to the parents and their families, but even convicted murderers are not ordered to pay such large sums of restitution. And that’s direct incontrovertible harm.

Murderers generally don't have access to a billion dollars. Alex Jones does.

I can’t find any indication that his net worth is anywhere close to a billion dollars, that infowars has revenue anywhere close to that, or that any of his ventures have a valuation high enough.

If the damages were something like $10-20 million I wouldn’t be making these posts.

> The whole situation with Alex Jones has undermined the confidence I have with our court system

If it makes you feel any better, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family was fined SIX TIMES more than Alex Jones. 800k people dead for $6B versus a dozen families' feelings hurt for $1B.

Our court system recognizes that the value of a human life is $7.5K, but the value of precious feelings is $83MM.

This seems pretty fair to me.

The good news is that punitive damages haven't been awarded yet. Hoping that the cost for hurt feelings rises north of $100M. Looking forward to suing everyone who said false statements about me in public. It's going to be an incredible payday, and I can parlay the winnings into running a drug operation and killing rural Americans with opioids and only pay a rounding error for everyone I murder.

Can't wait.

Edit: Apologies, HackerNews, are my numbers off? Am I factually incorrect? Are we seriously supporting the position that the Allies should have just hit Hitler with a $45B fine for the whole "Holocaust Thing" and called it even? I know addressing downvotes is frowned upon, but I'm genuinely curious why HN thinks feelings are worth eleven thousand times more than lives.

Edit 2: Understood. Feelings really are worth four orders of magnitude more than lives, on this forum. Got it.

I agree with you and upvoted you, but your choice of language was a bit strong and bordered on inflammatory. That could explain the downvotes I think.

I suspect your post is sarcasm, but you didn't include any markers and I've seen this argument in earnest enough times that I can't just assume it is sarcasm.

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