Jesse Ventura wins $1.84M in defamation suit v. Chris Kyle

[Tamie]

It doesn't matter that the suit was filed before Chris died, Ventura didn't drop the suit when he was killed. I hope he finds obscurity a very lonely place.

I agree 100% and if the other guy really did bear false witness, I hope he enjoys the heat.

[Tamie]

I think those tights Ventura wore in the ring cut off the blood supply to his nether regions, and he's been compensating for the loss ever since.

Are we talking about wrestlers or bicyclists?

[philip964]

I was at Barnes and Noble, bought Chris's book. Hopefully it spurs sales of the book at least.

[EEllis]

Local bias is rarely quantifiable which is why federal law allows state court claims to be filed in (or removed to) federal court under a "Diversity" claim. (That is diversity of state residency.) An entire body of federal law is based upon the reality of local bias. I see it on an intrastate level every time I try a case in a small county and one party or the other is not a resident of that county.

Apparently I misunderstood your numbers argument. You were talking about the amount of money going to the widow v. the money going to Ventura. I thought you were trying to counter my argument that it's impossible to provide accurate evidence about how much more the book allegedly sold because of the inclusion of the Ventura argument, as opposed to what sales would have been without including that incident. Your point is the widow isn't "poor;" my point is that the jury verdict on unjust enrichment is utterly without factual basis. (BTW, I never referred to Chris' widow being poor, only that Ventura went after the widow of a war hero and that's PR suicide.)

Chas.

All I would have to say is that we don't know what the argument is so it's a bit much for me to say that the plaintiffs argumentis without merit or without factual basis.

Yes, I/we do conclusively know that the unjust enrichment award is without a factual basis. That type of claim cannot be quantified in terms of sales of a book that covers many topics. Valid unjust enrichment claims are typically based upon sales of a product or service when the seller/provider violated patents, wrongfully obtained trade secret information, etc. The sales are easily quantifiable.

It is impossible, not difficult, not problematic, it's impossible to accurately estimate how many books would have been sold if the Ventura incident had not been included. It's equally impossible to even say that book sales would have been lower at all; they could just as easily been higher without the Ventura incident. Therefore, the jury award for unjust enrichment was purely speculative and speculative damages don't fly in Texas.

I don't need to hear or read what garbage plaintiff's counsel sold to the court or jury to know speculative damages when I see them being awarded. In fact, that's covered in law school in the required "Remedies" course, so even a second year law student knows garbage when they see it. The Texas Supreme Court has addressed "junk science" in appellate cases, so this isn't new or unexplored territory.

Chas.

I'm obviously not a legal scholar so as a layman here is a possibility as I see it. I don't think the story about "Scruff face" sold anything. I think that would be a horrible argument. I do think that the argument that Kyle used that story to get press which then increased his sales would have merit. There have been references to publisher email which talked about using the story and I believe Kyle was on some shows just because of the controversy which that publicity would obviously help his book sales. I don't think it would be hard to show that Kyle received some benefit by using that story to sell his book that translated directly into money. The only issue I would see is how to measure that amount. The idea that a person could show that there was unjust enrichment but because you can't put an exact dollar amount on it you would be unable to recover anything seem unjust at best. Now my understanding in Fed court you don't have to have an exact amount to receive compensation. That it considers unjust enrichment an equitable claim and allow a judge to decide the amount. I've been looking for a law blog that goes more into depth on this subject but haven't had any luck yet.

Also I would think that since we are dealing with book sales you should be able to get some figures on the subject. While they can't be exact I bet the publisher has to have some idea of how much publicity affects sales. How much they expect to recoup from PR expenditures. Heck I've heard at least one email from the publisher was introduced talking about pushing the JV fight story so I wonder if there were other email?

[EEllis]

I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything I was just interested in the legal sausage grinder that is our court system.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Local bias is rarely quantifiable which is why federal law allows state court claims to be filed in (or removed to) federal court under a "Diversity" claim. (That is diversity of state residency.) An entire body of federal law is based upon the reality of local bias. I see it on an intrastate level every time I try a case in a small county and one party or the other is not a resident of that county.

Apparently I misunderstood your numbers argument. You were talking about the amount of money going to the widow v. the money going to Ventura. I thought you were trying to counter my argument that it's impossible to provide accurate evidence about how much more the book allegedly sold because of the inclusion of the Ventura argument, as opposed to what sales would have been without including that incident. Your point is the widow isn't "poor;" my point is that the jury verdict on unjust enrichment is utterly without factual basis. (BTW, I never referred to Chris' widow being poor, only that Ventura went after the widow of a war hero and that's PR suicide.)

Chas.

All I would have to say is that we don't know what the argument is so it's a bit much for me to say that the plaintiffs argumentis without merit or without factual basis.

Yes, I/we do conclusively know that the unjust enrichment award is without a factual basis. That type of claim cannot be quantified in terms of sales of a book that covers many topics. Valid unjust enrichment claims are typically based upon sales of a product or service when the seller/provider violated patents, wrongfully obtained trade secret information, etc. The sales are easily quantifiable.

It is impossible, not difficult, not problematic, it's impossible to accurately estimate how many books would have been sold if the Ventura incident had not been included. It's equally impossible to even say that book sales would have been lower at all; they could just as easily been higher without the Ventura incident. Therefore, the jury award for unjust enrichment was purely speculative and speculative damages don't fly in Texas.

I don't need to hear or read what garbage plaintiff's counsel sold to the court or jury to know speculative damages when I see them being awarded. In fact, that's covered in law school in the required "Remedies" course, so even a second year law student knows garbage when they see it. The Texas Supreme Court has addressed "junk science" in appellate cases, so this isn't new or unexplored territory.

Chas.

I'm obviously not a legal scholar so as a layman here is a possibility as I see it. I don't think the story about "Scruff face" sold anything. I think that would be a horrible argument. I do think that the argument that Kyle used that story to get press which then increased his sales would have merit. There have been references to publisher email which talked about using the story and I believe Kyle was on some shows just because of the controversy which that publicity would obviously help his book sales. I don't think it would be hard to show that Kyle received some benefit by using that story to sell his book that translated directly into money. The only issue I would see is how to measure that amount. The idea that a person could show that there was unjust enrichment but because you can't put an exact dollar amount on it you would be unable to recover anything seem unjust at best. Now my understanding in Fed court you don't have to have an exact amount to receive compensation. That it considers unjust enrichment an equitable claim and allow a judge to decide the amount. I've been looking for a law blog that goes more into depth on this subject but haven't had any luck yet.

Also I would think that since we are dealing with book sales you should be able to get some figures on the subject. While they can't be exact I bet the publisher has to have some idea of how much publicity affects sales. How much they expect to recoup from PR expenditures. Heck I've heard at least one email from the publisher was introduced talking about pushing the JV fight story so I wonder if there were other email?

None of that matters unless there's a scientifically sound method to estimate books sales with and without the Ventura incident and there is none. There's no accurate, scientific way to say the book sold one more copy because of the Ventura incident, so there's no evidence of unjust enrichment. Since there's no legally admissible evidence to establish unjust enrichment, you never reach the question of how much. Everything you mention is speculation. You presume Kyle, a war hero with a record number of kills, wouldn't have gotten interviews without the Ventura incident. You presume that such interviews sold more copies of the book. All of that is speculation. Obviously, the local bias played a major role in an unjust enrichment question going to the jury. Hopefully, an appellate court will fix it.

Perhaps you think I'm saying there's no basis for any award and if so, you are mistaken. I focusing only on what I have read to be an award for unjust enrichment. Once defamation is proven, damages can be nominal (ex. $1) or they can be substantial if you can prove a dollar amount. That may or may not have been possible, but that's a separate damage award from unjust enrichment.

I'm not sure what you mean by "in Fed court you don't have to have an exact amount to receive compensation." However, you must establish liability before you can recover anything and with unjust enrichment cases in this context, that means you must show that the allegedly defamatory statement resulted in the sale of more books.

Chas.

[baldeagle]

I always shake my head when people on the forum want to argue legal matters with Charles.

[EEllis]

I'm not sure what you mean by "in Fed court you don't have to have an exact amount to receive compensation." However, you must establish liability before you can recover anything and with unjust enrichment cases in this context, that means you must show that the allegedly defamatory statement resulted in the sale of more books.

Chas.

If there is a email from the publisher talking about how great the publicity over the controversy is then that would show that at least the publisher valued the false story as a source of pr? Now how you attach a monetary amount to that I wouldn't have a clue but it would seem to be unfair to allow someone to keep that unearned value in its entirety just because valuing it is difficult. While I have never been involved in the publishing industry they must have some way in which they a sign values to things. The same with PR companies. Then there could be testimony from some of the shows bookers on the effect of the controversy, which I don't have the slightest ides if it happened or not but it doesn't sound crazy to me. Of course I have seen zero evidence and wouldn't be surprised at all if the judge threw out the award either so right now it's just a theoretical discussion and nothing more.

[EEllis]

I always shake my head when people on the forum want to argue legal matters with Charles.

If I have a less than complete understand I could just take someone's word that I'm wrong and end up with no better understanding than before or I can ask questions to elicit a discussion and hopefully improve my understanding. But that makes you shake your head?

[philip964]

Widow will appeal.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 3-17-08-37" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To bad I'm not a federal appeals court judge. First question, how has this suit not made your reputation look so much worse, so that any monitory judgement is meaningless.

[Abraham]

Will the appeal halt the payment process until the appeal is finalized?

(I hope)

[philip964]

http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/10/20/j ... urt-appeal

There is a good chance Chris Kyles widow will get a new trial. Judge allowed a lawyers statement that the publisher not the widow would pay the judgement to stand during the trial.

Jesse says he will leave the country if he loses appeal.

Sounds like another win win situation.

Please appeal court make my day!

[C-dub]

I don't think I would miss him. Well, on second thought ... I'm positive I wouldn't miss him.

[Glockster]

"...trial because a lawyer for Ventura allegedly told jurors that the $1.8 million judgment would be paid for by the Kyle's book publisher's insurance policy, not his estate."

This is a sad commentary on what reporting has come to be....I assume that there were transcripts from the trial. And from the judge's questioning on the record it seems absolutely clear that the statement was made. And so on what planet is this still an "allegedly" told the jury? Seems pretty factual to me.

[Charles L. Cotton]

[quote="philip964"Jesse says he will leave the country if he loses appeal.[/quote]

Well now, that puts him in the same fraternity as Rosie O'Donnell, Sylvester Stallone, Barry Diller, and others who said they'd leave the U.S. if a particular person won an election. Unfortunately, none of the dirt bags left.

Chas.