A Florida jury awarded Hulk Hogan $115 million after Gawker posted a Hogan sex tape that the jury felt invaded the celebrity’s privacy. Gawker lawyers had argued that the digital news site should be protected by the First Amendment and are expected to file an appeal. [The jury later added $25 million in punitive damages.] (The Hollywood Reporter, March 18, 2016, by Eriq Gardner)
Legal experts saw little damage from the verdict even if it is upheld in higher courts since it came from a trial court and because of the intimate nature of the content in question. “This was an unusual and extremely private matter. If Friday’s decision stands, that could be bad for the future of sex tapes, but I’m not sure it would be a threat to anything else,” said George Freeman, the executive director of the Media Law Resource Center. (The New York Times, March 19, 2016, by Erik Eckholm)
Writing in The New Yorker, March 23, 2016, by Fabio Bertoni sees greater problems with the verdict starting with the size of the judgment which could be crippling to a media company. Bertoli also argues that Hogan himself often discussed intimate details of his sex life in the public domain, forfeiting his right to privacy on the topic and that there is a significant free speech issue in the case. “…as Gawker’s lawyer argued in his closing statement … the First Amendment must take a broad view of ‘newsworthiness’ to have any effect. It is not the obvious stories or popular speech but rather the unpopular or shocking speech that requires constitutional protection,” wrote Bertoni.