Last week, a jury awarded Hulk Hogan $115 million in his lawsuit against Gawker Media, with the initial complaint coming from the website posting a sex tape featuring Hogan and the then-wife of his friend, radio “shock jock” Bubba Clem, in 2012. The jury determined that Hogan (whose real name is Terry Bollea) had “suffered severe emotional distress” from the video, and that Gawker had violated his privacy by posting it. Now, a jury has awarded Hogan an additional $25 million in punitive damages, with $15 million of it coming from Gawker itself and $10 million coming from Gawker owner Nick Denton. This comes from Variety, which explains that the initial ruling was to compensate Hogan for the aforementioned suffering he endured, but the punitive damages are “meant to deter defendants and others from engaging in similar conduct in the future.”
Gawker, of course, plans to appeal all of this, noting in a statement that several other judges have already said that the website’s decision to post the video should be protected under the First Amendment. On top of that, the jury in this case “was prohibited from knowing about these court rulings in favor of Gawker” and was “prohibited from hearing from the most important witness, Bubba Clem.” Gawker says it is “confident” that it will win the case when it gets to appeals, “based not only on the law but also on the truth.”