News organizations in general aren’t especially well-positioned to fight off litigation at the moment. “And if you think that it doesn’t really matter if the case was settled, you’re going to press onward and try to leverage yourself into a bigger settlement - because you have nothing to lose - or take your case to trial just to punish the defendant and make them pay more in the process.” “If you’re the attorney now for a plaintiff in this situation who’s guaranteed to paid because they’re getting bankrolled, you’re more likely to take that case to court,” Goldberg said. The result? Punitive lawsuits for the sake of litigation, Goldberg said. Many states have anti-SLAPP statutes to prevent these cases, but there are no laws that prevent a wealthy backer from financing a legal war against a media company. “The outcome is no longer to win money for your client, but to force the other person to twist in the wind for as long as possible before they have to pay something,” Goldberg said.īy way of comparison, Goldberg likened this variety of litigation financing against media organizations to SLAPP lawsuits, cases where the primary aim is actually to censor, intimidate or silence the defendants. Speaking in general terms and not referring to Gawker Media’s case specifically, Goldberg noted that additional backers who are primarily concerned with raiding a media company’s coffers could have a chilling effect on the media writ large. The type of lawsuit allegedly bankrolled by Thiel fits into the well-known industry of “litigation finance,” The New York Times reported Tuesday night, which often sees funders back personal injury, civil rights or workers compensation cases.īut Thiel’s involvement in the case against Gawker is a forbidding sign that has broader implications for a news industry that is already struggling to wage lawsuits in defense of their journalism, said Kevin Goldberg, a First Amendment attorney at legal firm Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth. And the disclosure comes as Gawker faces lawsuits from two other plaintiffs accusing the company of publishing “false and defamatory” stories about them. Petersburg, Florida courtroom to request a new trial. The story, attributed to multiple anonymous sources, broke just hours before Gawker Media was scheduled to appear in a St. Last night, Forbes reported out a rumor that has been circulating among media reporters for the last several months: Hulk Hogan’s $140 million lawsuit against Gawker Media was bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor, namely Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.
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