Tag: lawsuit

  • Hulk Hogan files another lawsuit against Gawker

    Hulk Hogan aka Terry Bollea has filed a second lawsuit against Gawker, claiming the company was responsible for leaking the contents of a sealed document which led to the end of his relationship with WWE.

    Bollea’s side has claimed that Gawker was responsible for leaking the contents of the tape of Hogan’s racist remarks to The National Enquirer, which published them.  When the WWE was informed that the remarks were coming out, they immediately severed all ties with Hogan and tried to remove most of the mentions of Hogan from its web site, including his name from their Hall of Fame.

    The lawsuit noted that Nick Denton, the CEO of Gawker, had written a blog piece predicting that Hogan’s real secret would soon be revealed.

    The contents of the tapes were sealed.  However, long before they were sealed, a web site, The Dirty.com had done a story discussing the tapes much earlier which for whatever reason, didn’t get the same media play, largely because there was a description of the remarks without the actual wording of the remarks.

    Hogan is also suing Florida DJ Mike Calta, known as Cowhead, who he claimed sent at least one of the secretly recorded sex tapes to Gawker.

    For reasons not exactly clear, law enforcement officials never filed charges against Calta or anyone involved in what was believed to have been stealing the tapes from Bubba the Love Sponge, who had recorded Hogan having sex with wife Heather.

    The new lawsuit doesn’t list specific monetary damages.

  • Figure Four Weekly 3/28/2016: Developments in WWE’s concussion lawsuits, plus more news

    Just a few hours after Hulk Hogan was awarded another $25.1 million in punitive damages by a Pinellas County, Florida jury, the concussion-themed lawsuits against WWE took a major hit last week after a 71 page ruling by Connecticut Federal District Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant. The wrestlers/plaintiffs did have a minor win in there: Vito Lograsso and Evan Singleton didn’t have their cases thrown out, in part thanks to Bryant buying the argument that WWE’s outreach to former talent tolls (extends) the statute of repose (more strict than a statute of limitations). But by and large, this was a victory for WWE. Right before the judge agreed with WWE’s argument that they should be protected “under the contact sports exception they could only be held liable for reckless and intentional conduct, and not ordinary negligence,” she wrote this:

    Current subscribers click here to continue reading.

  • Figure Four Weekly 3/21/2016: Hulk Hogan awarded $115 million by jury (Sort of)

    The trial of Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker Media, Nick Denton, and A.J. Daulerio (who we’ll collectively call “Gawker” unless we need to be more specific) turned out to be quite possibly even more of a circus than anyone even could have imagine, as of this writing, it resulted in Hogan being awarded $115 million in compensatory damages with punitive damages still to come. The jury split the compensatory damages as $60 million in emotional damagers and $55 million in lost wages, with the latter number determined in large part from how much Hogan claimed he would have made if he had decided to market the video. He most likely won’t get close to that, if anything. There’s a question of exactly what Gawker will need to do to appeal, as Florida has various laws relating to posting a bond to secure the award when filing an appeal. There are alternatives, but the options including Gawker trying to stay the bond with the trial judge (unlikely given Judge Campbell’s rulings up to this point), posting the maximum allowed $50 million bond, or having to hire a bond company and paying about $12 million so the bond company can post $50 million.

    Click here for the PDF.

    Click here for the epub.

    Current subscribers click here to continue reading.