In the intervening months, Gawker announced plans to sell a minority stake to an investment company, a decision that Denton partially attributed to the need to raise money to pay for its fight against Bollea. Initially scheduled for trial last summer, the case was delayed until today, when jury selection begins. But he has also acknowledged that Gawker does not have $100 million to spare. In interviews with various news outlets, Gawker's founder and chief executive, Nick Denton, who is also a target of the suit, has said the Hogan post was in keeping with the site's mission of publishing stories that reveal the shallowness of celebrity culture and that more stodgy publications won't touch. That seems like the hardest hurdle for Hulk Hogan to get over," she said. "But if you are a public figure, and especially if you've made this part of your private life a topic of conversation, it makes it even more difficult to argue that it wasn't newsworthy. "There's generally nothing as private as your personal sex life and the courts tend to sympathize with that information being put out there," said Cameron, the professor of media law at Stetson University. Jeb Bush, who intervened in the case on Schiavo's parents' behalf, later appointed Campbell to the bench. Petersburg family fought against the removal of her feeding tube, igniting a national debate over life and death. She is perhaps best known as the attorney for the parents of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose St. And Bollea, 62, who is expected to testify, has received the judge's permission to wear a "plain bandana" to court, a toned-down version of his signature Hulk Hogan costume.Įven the judge, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Pamela Campbell, has had her own brush with celebrity. Jurors will be shown the sex tape, though it will be off-limits to the press and the audience in the courtroom. "This is a lot of excitement for a small courthouse," said Catherine Cameron, a professor of media law at Stetson University.Īpart from a judge's ruling that Hogan go by his real name, Terry Bollea, the trial has the makings of a choreographed fight. Here, in a community still known as a retirement destination, a jury of Gawker's peers will decide whether its decision to publish the tape, along with an unfavorable review of the Hulkster's performance, constituted a violation of privacy. Petersburg, an incongruous setting for a case that primarily interests First Amendment buffs, New York City news media and wrestling fans. It is now at the center of a $100 million defamation lawsuit brought by Hogan that goes to trial this week in downtown St. This Note suggests additional avenues by which this threat might be ameliorated, including the adoption of stronger anti-SLAPP statutes, increased regulation of third-party litigation funding, and amendments to the discovery rules that would more readily unveil the presence of a vengeful funder.But years later, that sex tape resurfaced online, published as a one minute and 41 second excerpt by the New York-based news and gossip website Gawker. While these “revenge litigation funding” schemes are fueled by the same kind of nefarious ends that underlie the rationale of champerty and maintenance-the legal doctrines that historically restricted third-party litigation funding-their protections do not sufficiently address the issue. This Note explores the strategy employed by actors like Thiel, who have weaponized third-party litigation funding as a means of attacking and silencing an already weakened free press. His success sent shudders through the media world, demonstrating that determined actors with deep pockets could sue the Fourth Estate out of existence. Thiel’s clandestine legal campaign was part of a vendetta against Gawker Media, a venture he confirms was singularly focused on bankrupting the company through litigation. The website was one of several Gawker Media properties crushed under the weight of a $140 million jury verdict awarded to Terry Bollea (better known as former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan), in a lawsuit financed by eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. In August 2016, shut down after 14 years of-more often than not-controversial online publishing.
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