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A jury has hit Gawker Media with $15 million in punitive damages and it's owner with $10 million, adding to the $115 million it awarded last week for publishing a sex video of Hulk Hogan. USA TODAY
FILE - MARCH 18: Wrestler Hulk Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, was awarded $115 million in his lawsuit against Gawker Media. Bollea alleged invasion of privacy after Gawker's publication of a sex tape. ST PETERSBURG, FL - MARCH 08: NY POST OUT Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, testifies in court during his trial against Gawker Media at the Pinellas County Courthouse on March 8, 2016 in St Petersburg, Florida. Bollea is taking legal action against Gawker in a USD 100 million lawsuit for releasing a video of him having sex with his best friends wife. (Photo by John Pendygraft-Pool/Getty Images)(Photo: Pool)
After awarding former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan $115 million last week in a case involving the online posting of a sex tape, a Florida jury on Monday upped the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>award by more than $25 million for punitive damages, WTSP reported.
The award represents additional damages that the jury decided Hogan should receive from<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gawker<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Media, its owner and Gawker's former editor-in-chief, who<span style="color: Red;">*</span>posted the video and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>story in 2012.
Gawker Media<span style="color: Red;">*</span>owns Gawker.com and Gizmodo.com, among other media properties.
The verdict means that Gawker Media founder Nick Denton must personally pay $10 million —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and that former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio, who posted excerpts from the tape, must pay $100,000.
Just spoke to a juror: asked her if she wanted to send a message to these websites "I think we did"
— Jennifer Titus (@jenntitus10) March 21, 2016
In a statement,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Heather Dietrick, Gawker's president and general counsel, predicted that the company would prevail in an appeal when a fuller account of the case is heard.
"There is so much this jury deserved to know and, fortunately, that the appeals court does indeed know," she said. "So we are confident we will win this case ultimately based on not only on the law but also on the truth."
Jurors deliberated for about three hours on Monday before handing down the award to Hogan,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>whose real name is Terry G. Bollea.
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Pamela Campbell also ordered that the infamous sex tape be sealed, the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Tampa Bay Times reported.
Lawyer Michael Berry said the verdict already rendered will be financially devastating for Denton and that the $115 million message had already been heard loud and clear.
"Your verdict has already punished my clients. It will no doubt deter others. Your verdict will send a chill down the spine of publishers, producers, writers throughout the country. It has set a message of deterrence already," said Berry.
Hogan’s attorneys argued that with<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Denton’s net worth being $120 million, it was up to the six-person<span style="color: Red;">*</span>jury to send a message to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gawker<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and other internet websites.
"The simple message that relates to this case is the line is drawn at publication without consent of a recording of a private act in a private bedroom and you can send that message to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gawker<span style="color: Red;">*</span>for their conduct in this case and you can send it to the other<span style="color: Red;">*</span>similarily<span style="color: Red;">*</span>situated. And that's not my language, that's the language of the law," said Kenneth<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Turkel, Hogan's attorney.
Gawker founder Nick Denton speaks to the media on Friday, March 18, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Hulk Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea was awarded $115 million in damages in his lawsuit against the gossip website Gawker on Friday. (Eve Edelheit/The Tampa Bay Times via AP)<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Eve Edelheit, AP)
Hogan sued Gawker, an independent media company, for posting a video in 2012 of him having sex with the wife of his former best friend.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The<span style="color: Red;">*</span>black-and-white tape, made in the mid-2000s, showed Hogan having sex with the wife Todd Clem, a radio personality better known as<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.
In her statement, Gawker's Dietrick noted that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>three state appeals court judges and a federal judge had "repeatedly ruled that Gawker’s post was newsworthy under the First Amendment.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>We expect that to happen again — particularly because the jury was prohibited from knowing about these court rulings in favor of Gawker, prohibited from seeing critical evidence gathered by the FBI and prohibited from hearing from the most important witness, Bubba Clem."
The pair said they didn't know they were being recorded, but Dietrick added, "Didn’t the jury deserve to know that Bubba told his radio listeners and then the FBI, in a meeting where lying is a criminal offense, that Hulk Hogan knew he was making a sex tape? Didn’t the jury deserve to know the FBI uncovered multiple tapes of Hulk Hogan having sex with Bubba’s wife? Didn’t the jury deserve to know about the text messages Hulk Hogan sent to Bubba that undermine this case?"
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