Bollea v. Gawker
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''Bollea v. Gawker'' was a lawsuit filed in 2013 in the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in and for Pinellas County, Florida, delivering a verdict on March 18, 2016. In the suit, Terry Gene Bollea, known professionally as
Hulk Hogan Terry Eugene Bollea (; born August 11, 1953), better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is widely regarded as the most recognized wrestling star worldwide and the most popular wrestler of the 19 ...
, sued Gawker Media, publisher of the
Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...
website, and several Gawker employees and Gawker-affiliated entities, for posting portions of a sex tape of Bollea with Heather Clem, at that time the wife of radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge. Bollea's claims included invasion of privacy, infringement of
personality rights Personality rights, sometimes referred to as the right of publicity, are rights for an individual to control the commercial use of their identity, such as name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal identifiers. They are generally considered as ...
, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Prior to trial, Bollea's lawyers said the privacy of many Americans was at stake while Gawker's lawyers said that the case could hurt
freedom of the press Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
in the United States. Bollea sought $100 million in damages. In March 2016, the jury found Gawker Media liable and awarded Bollea $115 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages. Three months after the verdict, Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale. Gawker Media's assets, not including the namesake website, were subsequently sold to
Univision Communications TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is held by the ...
. On November 2, 2016, Gawker reached a $31 million settlement with Bollea.


Background

In 2006, Bollea was videotaped while having sex with Heather Clem; at trial he claimed that the videotaping was without his knowledge or consent. On '' The Howard Stern Show'', Bollea told
Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...
that he had slept with Heather with Bubba Clem's blessing and his encouragement because he was so burnt-out from the trauma of his coming divorce that he finally gave in to the "relentless" come-ons from Heather who "kept going down that road." Bollea said that he knew that Clem had "an alternative lifestyle" and that he had stopped by their house "just to say hello" when Heather tempted him. Bollea later testified: "I was depressed. I gave up and gave in. I felt that those people loved me." Bubba testified that he
burned Burned or burnt may refer to: * Anything which has undergone combustion * Burned (image), quality of an image transformed with loss of detail in all portions lighter than some limit, and/or those darker than some limit * ''Burnt'' (film), a 2015 ...
the video to a DVD, wrote "Hogan" on it, and put it in a desk drawer. On October 4, 2012, Gawker editor
A.J. Daulerio Albert James Daulerio (born ) is an American writer and blogger. He is the former editor of Gawker and Deadspin. Daulerio famously published an excerpt of Hulk Hogan's sex tape, which led to a lawsuit and the bankruptcy and sale of Gawker Med ...
published a two-minute extract from the 30-minute video, including 10 seconds of explicit sexual activity.


Preliminary injunction decisions

Bollea originally sued Gawker for copyright infringement in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, seeking a temporary injunction. Bollea's lawyer was Charles Harder. U.S. District Judge
James D. Whittemore James David Whittemore (born August 29, 1952) is a Senior United States District Judge presently serving in the Tampa division of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. He was previously a Florida state trial cou ...
denied Bollea's motion, ruling that the validity of the copyright was in question, and that given the degree to which Bollea had already put his own private life into the public arena, the publication of the video might be protected by fair use. Bollea withdrew his case in the US district court and sued Gawker in Florida state court. There, his request for an injunction was granted by Judge Pamela Campbell in 2013. Gawker announced that it would not comply with the part of the court order requiring the removal of the post and associated commentary because it deemed the order "risible and contemptuous of centuries of First Amendment jurisprudence." Gawker removed the video itself, but linked readers to another site hosting the video. The injunction was quickly stayed on appeal, and was denied in 2014 by the appeals court, which ruled that under the circumstances it was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech under the First Amendment. Gawker tried to get Judge Campbell to dismiss the case based on that ruling, but the case went to trial.


Trial and verdict

The six-person jury consisted of four women and two men. The trial lasted two weeks. During the trial, Gawker argued that Bollea made his sex life a public matter, although on cross-examination, when asked by Bollea's lawyer whether a depiction of his genitalia had any "news value," former Gawker editor AJ Daulerio responded "no". Bollea said that comments made in interviews were done in his professional wrestling
character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
, an on-air persona different from his own. The court was shown a taped deposition where Daulerio said that he would consider a celebrity sex tape non-newsworthy if the subject was under the age of four. Daulerio later told the court he was being flippant in his response. On March 18, 2016, the jury delivered a verdict in favor of Bollea. The jury awarded him $115 million in compensatory damages, which included $60 million for emotional distress. The jury awarded Bollea an additional $25 million in punitive damages on March 21. Reactions to the verdict ranged from those supporting it and decrying voyeuristic publications, to those describing it as of limited scope which doesn't damage free speech, to those describing the verdict and the large judgment as having a deeply chilling effect on journalism when courts can decide newsworthiness.


Aftermath

Gawker CEO Nick Denton said the company would appeal the verdict. In early April 2016, Gawker Media filed two post-trial motions in the trial court.Steven Perlberg
Gawker Begins Appeal of $140 Million Hulk Hogan Verdict
''Wall Street Journal'' (April 5, 2016).
In one motion, the company sought to throw out the jury verdict, arguing that "key evidence was wrongly withheld" and the jury instructions on the constitutional standards for newsworthiness were improper. In another motion, Gawker argued that even if the verdict stands, the amount of damages should be greatly reduced, arguing that the emotional damage award exceeded amounts found to be excessive in severe personal injury cases and that the economic damages were improperly calculated. In late May 2016, the trial judge denied both motions. In May 2016, it was reported that Bollea had sued Gawker again, alleging that they were responsible for leaking sealed court documents that had quoted him using racial slurs. The transcripts were published by the '' National Enquirer,'' and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) subsequently fired him. Gawker denied being responsible for the leak. Bollea would be re-signed by WWE on July 15, 2018. Billionaire Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and former Facebook board member, paid $10 million to help finance lawsuits against Gawker Media, including the Bollea lawsuit. He called his financial support of Bollea's case "one of my greater philanthropic things that I've done." Gawker had published an article in 2007
outing Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...
Thiel as gay. On June 9, 2016, Gawker filed a motion for a
stay of execution A stay of execution is a court order to temporarily suspend the execution of a court judgment or other court order. The word "execution" does not always mean the death penalty. It refers to the imposition of whatever judgment is being stayed and i ...
of judgment pending appeal. In the motion and accompanying affidavits from Gawker Media personnel, the company stated that it could not afford to pay the $140.1 million judgment or the $50 million
appeal bond A supersedeas bond (often shortened to ''supersedeas''), also known as a defendant's appeal bond, is a type of surety bond that a court requires from an appellant who wants to delay payment of a judgment until an appeal is over. This is a featu ...
. On June 10, 2016, Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale. Denton personally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on August 1.
Univision Communications TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is held by the ...
bought Gawker Media's assets for $135 million at a bankruptcy auction on August 16, 2016. The sale to Univision included six Gawker websites— Deadspin,
Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...
, Jalopnik, Jezebel,
Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...
and
Lifehacker ''Lifehacker'' is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on January 31, 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is currently owned by G/O Media. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including: Microsoft W ...
—which were not involved with the publication of the Bollea materials. The sale did not include the continued operations of the flagship
Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...
website. On August 18, 2016, it was announced that the main Gawker site would be shut down by the next week. Gawker's article archive would remain online and its employees will either be transferred to the remaining six websites or elsewhere in Univision. On November 2, 2016, Gawker Media and Bollea reached a $31 million settlement. As a result of the settlement, Gawker forwent its appeal and three articles from ''gawker.com'' were taken down, including the one involving Bollea. Other lawsuits followed naming Hiscox Insurance,
Cox Radio CMG Media Corporation (doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...
, Terry Bollea, Mike Calta (of the ''Mike Calta Show'') and Matthew Christian Lloyd (a radio personality formerly employed by Bubba the Love Sponge).


See also

* Celebrity sex tape


References


Further reading

* {{GawkerMedia United States district court cases 2016 in United States case law Gawker Media Florida state case law Freedom of speech in the United States Hulk Hogan Sex scandals in the United States