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US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones could end up paying just 10% of the $45.2 million in punitive damages awarded by a Texas jury to the parents of Sandy Hook victims last week, a legal expert said. The house told Reuters on Monday.
A jury delivered a verdict of punitive damages on Friday, Thursday after Jones' two-week trial in Austin, Texas, home of his Infowars radio show and webcast. awarded his parents $4.1 million in compensatory damages.
Jones said last year that Sandy, his 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis, died in the 2012 shooting at Hook Elementary School. It turned out that it was. A government conspiracy to stage a massacre.
Juries have wide discretion in awarding, but Texas law does not allow punitive damages when economic loss is not involved, as in this case. He limits the damages to $750,000.
Mark Bankston, the parents' attorney, told Reuters in an email that Jones and his firm each face three claims against him, so the cap is on his $4.5 million. He said he estimated it would. Bankston said he argued that a cap on damages would not apply, but did not elaborate.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble will have to approve the final amount. This decision will be made shortly.
Jones' attorney, Federico Andino Raynal, said in court on Friday that the $45.2 million punitive damages award was not compliant with Texas law and would seek a reduction. He confirmed to Reuters on Monday that he plans to exercise the cap.
According to the New York Times, Raynal said the punitive ruling reduced him to $1.5 million. He said he expects to be
Some defamation lawyers said they were skeptical that parents could get around the cap.
"They're not going to collect it all. No,” said Texas defamation attorney Chuck Sanders.
Sanders said the initial numbers would serve as a permanent deterrent to the spread of misinformation, even if the verdict was significantly undershot.
Even if a parent were able to convince a gambling judge that the cap should not apply, the Texas Supreme Court's precedent found that the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages was 4 to 1 for him. is rarely exceeded. The jury verdict in this case represents an 11 to 1 ratio.
Texas judges cited a 2003 US Supreme Court decision in reaching their decision. The ruling stated that the ratio of punitive and compensatory damages should not exceed single digits in rare cases.
Jones' company, his Free Speech Systems LLC, filed for bankruptcy protection on July 29, suspending his two other Sandy Hook lawsuits against Jones. (Reporting by Jack Queen, Editing by Amy Stevens and Cynthia Osterman)
