Alex Jones must pay families of Sandy Hook shooting victims despite bankruptcy -- UPDATED

October 21, 2023

If you have been following the news about the lawsuit filed by the surviving families of the Sandy Hook school shooting against millionaire conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, you know that a Connecticut jury ordered Jones to pay $965 million in damages to 15 relatives of the victims.  Soon, Jones tried to weasel his way out of having to pay for the damages he caused by filing for bankruptcy.  

But I just learned that another judge has ruled that Jones can’t use bankruptcy protections to avoid paying money to the families of the victims. The Hill has more on the story here.

Unfortunately, it may be a while before the families see any of the money, but I hope they do sooner rather than later.  

UPDATE 10/27/23: Above the Law has an update and commentary here.

The importance of understanding the difference between a wrongful death claim and a survival statute claim

 Day on Torts is reporting (here) on a recent case in Tennessee that reminds us of the importance of the difference between a wrongful death claim and a claim under a survival statute.  And what is that difference?  In a nutshell, the recovery in a wrongful death claim goes to the beneficiary as defined in the wrongful death statute, which is usually the decedent's surviving spouse; but the recovery in a claim under the survival statute goes to the decedent's estate.  This means that in a case under the survival statute, it is possible the surviving spouse will get a much more reduced recovery - or none at all.

In this new case, called Sanders v. Higgins (available here), the plaintiff was the surviving spouse of someone who died in an accident. Plaintiff brought a claim against the decedent’s insurance company alleging misrepresentation and negligence.  The parties reached a settlement on the negligence claims, and the trial court ordered disbursement of the settlement proceeds to plaintiff as surviving spouse but the decedent’s estate appealed arguing that the proceeds should have been distributed to the estate. On appeal, the court of appeals agreed with the estate and reversed.

Not surprisingly, Court dismisses Patrick Reed's most recent defamation suit

 Back in August of last year I reported that professional golfer Patrick Reed filed a defamation claim against a number of defendants including commentators for the Golf Channel, and I explained how the complaint was a good model to teach how NOT to  draft a complaint.  See here.

The complaint was based on obviously wrong arguments and I predicted it would be dismissed.  My prediction was correct and the case was dismissed in November.  But the dismissal was without prejudice and, thus, Reed and his lawyers were given a chance to amend the complaint and try again.

They shouldn't have because, as I argued back then, the claim was flawed from the start; but they did.  

And, predictably, they lost again.  As expected, the court found that the alleged defamatory statements were either not defamatory, rhetorical hyperbole, true or substantially true, or statements of opinion.

You can read the opinion, which is pretty detailed and long, here.