Legal Experts See Little Effect on News Media From Hulk Hogan Verdict

Legal scholars were as startled as anyone by the scale of the damages awarded by a Florida jury on March 19 to the retired professional wrestler known as Hulk Hogan in his suit against Gawker.com for posting a sex tape. But several experts on the First Amendment said that the $115 million award was very likely to be reduced and that even if the verdict against Gawker survived scrutiny in higher courts, any wider effect on press freedoms was likely to be limited.

In the end, either the trial judge or an appeals court can reduce the damages. But the case will be watched intently by legal experts because it touches on hazily defined boundaries of constitutional law in the Internet era: What is newsworthy? Where is the line between privacy and freedom of the press? Whether this case has any direct implications for press freedoms depends on what happens next. A jury decision in one lower court does not set a precedent. Because it came from a trial court, the verdict “doesn’t in itself move the bar on the constitutional question in any significant way,” said Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Lawyers for Gawker Media say they have strong grounds for an appeal. Before that happens, though, the company faces a series of legal hurdles as the trial comes to a close. Once the jury sets punitive damages, a process that will probably begin in the coming week, the judge in the case must set a bond that the company will have to post.