Today, the civil trial of Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media, founder/publisher Nick Denton, and former editor A.J. Daulerio. continued…but not for long. T0day was all about punitive damages, which are exactly what it says on the tin: They’re designed to punish the defendant on top of compensatory damages, which were awarded to Hogan on Friday for emotional damages ($60 million) as well as lost wages $55 million). After fairly brief (by this trial’s standards) arguments by both sides, the Pinellas Country, Florida jury of four women and six men awarded Hogan punitive damages of $15 million from Gawker Media, $10 million from Denton and $100,000 from Daulerio.
Daulerio, in particular, will be hit hard here. He was considered to have negative $27,000 in assets because of outstanding student loans. and even Hogan’s lawyers told the jury that they weren’t seeking punitive damages from him. One juror even asked if they can punish Daulerio with community service instead of financial damages, but that wasn’t a possibility, and clearly most of the jurors weren’t as (relatively) sympathetic as that one. It’s not yet clear how the compensatory damages are broken up, or if Gawker Media is liable for all of that.
One juror, Salina Stevens, did comment to the press, as recounted by Katie Mettler of the Tampa Bay Times (all others refused to speak to media):
https://twitter.com/kemettler/status/712035914579623936
https://twitter.com/kemettler/status/712036147854188545
https://twitter.com/kemettler/status/712036408358256640
https://twitter.com/kemettler/status/712036635630813184
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