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Comment by sjsdaiuasgdia | Hacker News Reader

What do you feel would be an outcome to this situation that aligns to the realism and pragmatism you believe the court system should have?

All of the threads related to this topic have had a pile of folks going "the amount was too much!" but hardly any of them say what they think an appropriate punishment would look like...

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I can only speak for myself, but punitive damages of 1-2 million per complainant (22 I think) seems entirely reasonable and in line with previous rulings? But let me also flip the on it's head, if 1.4 billion dollars is an appropriate punishment to you then is there any amount of money that would be too much?

I don't think your values are sufficient deterrent for the kind of behavior Alex Jones and InfoWars exhibited and substantially profited from. They made more than the 22-44 million you're suggesting. They would still have profited from their actions.

I think it needs to be large enough to be a real deterrent. So it needs to be large enough that there is a real risk of turning substantial profit into substantial loss. "What if we get sued for $existentiallyLargeAmount?" needs to be part of the business math when deciding whether to tell lies for profit.

"More money than exists in the world" would clearly be too much. But I'm absolutely fine with a company and its chief officers being left penniless for such behavior. So I'm definitely fine with taking everything the company has, taking everything the chief officers have, and possibly adding a bit of debt on top of that.

So that kinda sums it up then, people who disagree with you (including me) think that the punitive damages should be rooted in punishing Alex Jones et al, not in destroying him forever.

The punishment was made to be a deterrent for all who might consider doing the same as Alex Jones. You have made a straw man about destroying him forever.

Notably, what he did probably does deserve him being destroyed forever.

If he still profits from the behavior, has he really been punished?

It has to be bigger than what the business can accept as "just a cost of doing business" or it isn't actually a deterrent.

>think that the punitive damages should be rooted in punishing Alex Jones

Correct. This is what happens when you go to court and play by the rules and stop doing things when you get an injunction against said behaviors.

When you tell the court to fuck off and you can do whatever you want, repeatedly, this is when you get the deserved massive punitive smack down for being an anti-social dick.

The problem you have is the complete and total lack of ability to put yourself in the shoes of any of the victims here that had got injunctions from the court many times only to have them be ignored and for have the abuse to then scale up even further. Millions in fines does not solve the behavior, he was making more than that in scamming people. A fine that is lower than profits is just a cost of doing business.

The way you leave a company penniless is to fine them and everyone else involved for ‘more money than there is in the world’?

The "punishment" keeps appearing in this thread and I think that is what explains the eye popping settlement.

Not the person you asked, but the sensible thing is of course that the court decides the amount - not the plaintiffs. That's how it works in other places.

In criminal cases, I've seen victims getting anywhere between 50% to 10% of what they've demanded, or even nothing even when the judgement has been in their favour.

You're aware a judge was still involved in the process and agreed to it, right? It's not just the plaintiffs.

Yes, I'm aware and I didn't think I had to spell it out: the court should decide the amount according to their own opinion of what is fair, rather than accept a demand from one side.

I mean, typically you have the defense and plaintiffs go back and forth on this. Turns out it doesn't pay to be a criminal loser and try to ignore the court.

TL:DR this is never going to be a problem you have, because you'll get a decent lawyer and not be a wildly massive prick about getting your own way.

The court does decide, but the plaintiffs are allowed to present their opinion on what it should be and if you manage to screw up your defense enough then the jury gets told to agree with the plaintiff.

This is also the result of multiple lost lawsuits as well as additional penalties from not complying with court directives during the cases.

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