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Yes to all this, but it's also important to mention that he lost by default because being an obstinate litigant and refusing to comply with discovery orders was his entire MO. We'll see how the collection and bankruptcy after-action ultimately play out, but I can't imagine anyone thinking this ever had a chance of working in his favor. MAYBE his efforts (setting aside their morality/legality) helped him shield some of his assets, but that was in exchange for abandoning the field to swallow the default judgment poison pill. Moreover, this also means that he had to functionally abandon any actually real defenses, such as anything remotely grounded in free speech protections. I would love to see an earnest steelman of why his cases sets a bad precedent, but as far as I can tell it largely falls along tribal lines.
If he thinks he cannot win, it probably does not help to aggressively fight it because that would cost him $ that would otherwise go to paying the judgement. It would also add to the plaintiff's legal bills (a default judgement is a lot cheaper than a long legal battle). A successful defense in a libel case would be to show that the Sandy Hook victims were in fact crisis actors or that no reasonable person would believe him (satire defense). The $1 billion seems arbitrarily and excessively punitive if you include medical bills and lost wages for every family member, which cannot possibly be anywhere close to $1 billion. It sets a precedent that anyone who is sufficiently and convincingly traumatized by speech can be awarded an arbitrarily large amount of money.
But, damages for defamation have always included far more than medical bills and lost wages. 3 Restatement of Torts ยง 621, Comment a (1938) ("It is not necessary for the plaintiff [who is seeking general damages in an action for defamation] to prove any specific harm to his reputation or any other loss caused thereby"). And, damages for emotional distress are normal, not just in defamation cases, but in all intentional tort cases, if the defendant's behavior is egregious enough. See, eg, Molien v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, 27 Cal.3d 916, 927 (1980) ["intentional torts will support an award of damages for emotional distress alone, but only in cases involving 'extreme and outrageous intentional invasions of one's mental and emotional tranquility.'"].
No, it doesn't, not unless 1) the award is not reduced by the court upon entry of judgment, which happens all the time; and 2) the award was actually arbitrary. You seem to assume that "large" = "arbitrary." But, without looking at the actual evidence before the jury, there is no way to determine whether it was arbitrary or not. The fact that the amount awarded to each plaintiff varied from 28 million to 120 million, is at least some evidence that the jury did not act arbitrarily.
Finally, it does not remotely create a precedent that anyone "traumatized by speech" can be awarded any compensation at all; rather it is merely the latest in 200+ years of precedent holding that someone harmed by** unprotected **speech, of which defamation is an obvious example, can be compensated.
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You're incomplete. It this sets any precedent it's "anyone who is sufficiently and convincingly traumatized by speech can be awarded an arbitrarily large amount of money...provided they face a defendant who 100% gives up any semblance of legal defense and instead spends enormous resources trying to shield from liability as much of his multi-million dollar commercial enterprise as possible, by ineffectively trying to distribute it to family members and other antics."
The precedent it sets isn't a legal one, but a practical one. If you're on the right, you can be destroyed for any reason and the legal system will bend over backwards to do it. Your motions will be summarily denied and your appeals unheard. You will be denied your day in court based on procedural gotchas, your lawyers will be sanctioned for defending you, and you will be penalized well beyond your ability to withstand.
I thought we were talking about Alex Jones? I have no idea what your hypothetical has to do with his cases.
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