Erin Andrews Awarded $55 Million in Lawsuit

[TuscanyTile2]

7 hours ago, Scott Dierking said:

My guess is that it boils down to this-If Erin Andrews had the option of:

1. Never having had this happen and she continued her career, maybe without some of the special benefits this supposedly gave her, but had a solid broadcast career 

OR 

2. Enduring this video and the supposed humiliation + the court's decision + a few supposed extra career perks

That she would choose #2. Maybe that is me hoping that there is a solid intention of a cute lady who wants to just have her dignity and sense of peace.

Again, that may just be me.

 

For $55M I'm sure an overwhelming number of women would go for option #2.  I would if I were in her position.  

[Jet Nut]

2 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

I stand corrected on the OJ murder count. It was 2 (Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman).  My point is the same though.  In civil court (where the burden of proof is lower) OJ WAS convicted of the murders. As for your point that $25M from 20 years ago was a lot less than it is today, fair enough.  But even if it would take $50 M to equal $25M from 20 years ago (and I doubt that though I do think the US is going to experience hyperinflation at some point soon thanks the the Federal Reserve's reckless money printing) is what happens to EA anywhere close to 2 murders?   That was my point about you not listening.  

OJ was not convicted of murder anywhere.  

I think if you did the calculations of the effect of inflation on dollar amounts over 20 or so years you would be shocked

[TuscanyTile2]

Just now, Jet Nut said:

OJ was not convicted of murder anywhere.  

I think if you did the calculations of the effect of inflation on dollar amounts over 20 or so years you would be shocked

He was found guilty in the civil case.  

Of everyone on JN, I would be amongst the least shocked at the inflation that has occurred (see my comment above about the federal reserve). Regardless, does what happened to EA deserve the same  amount as a double murder?  You can't seriously be arguing that. 

[Jet Nut]

3 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

He was found guilty in the civil case.  

Of everyone on JN, I would be amongst the least shocked at the inflation that has occurred (see my comment above about the federal reserve). Regardless, does what happened to EA deserve the same  amount as a double murder?  You can't seriously be arguing that. 

No he wasnt.  It was a wrongful death case, not a murder trial

[TuscanyTile2]

2 minutes ago, Jet Nut said:

No he wasnt.  It was a wrongful death case, not a murder trial

Fair enough. Is wrongful death not much worse than what happened to EA?

[Jet Nut]

2 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

Fair enough. Is wrongful death not much worse than what happened to EA?

Its about who has what.  OJ didnt have anything of consequence.  His income comes from a pension which cant be touched.  He had nothing to give. Not the same as the EA case.  

[Scott Dierking]

This doesn't pertain to the "majority" of women, it pertains to Erin Andrews.

And neither your nor I can pretend to know how she feels

[TuscanyTile2]

35 minutes ago, Jet Nut said:

No he wasnt.  It was a wrongful death case, not a murder trial

Fair enough. Is wrongful death not much worse than what happened to EA?

 

 

Still an absurd penalty. 

[jett]

2 hours ago, JetBlue said:

Have to agree. 55 Million?? That is insane... 

basically split 50/50 Marriott and the other guy. The one dude has no money so the 26 million from mariott is what she will get.  They are gonna appeal, probably down to 20 million. Take out 40 percent lawyer fees, a 1 million trial setup fee and the ever loving federal taxes, and she will be left with... 6 or 7 million.

[no psls]

Maybe Erin Andrews can donate some money to keep Fitz .

[Savage69]

Just now, no psls said:

Maybe Erin Andrews can donate some money to keep Fitz .

Donate No but she will flash a boob for 5 million..

[Jet Nut]

20 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

Fair enough. Is wrongful death not much worse than what happened to EA?

 

 

Still an absurd penalty. 

Not sure that it makes a difference, what the hotel did was pretty bad. 

[Scott Dierking]

3 minutes ago, Jet Nut said:

Not sure that it makes a difference, what the hotel did was pretty bad. 

It was unconscionable. They are "lucky" that this was the only repercussion and that nobody was killed. They deserved to be hit hard

[Gas2No99]

On March 7, 2016 at 3:36 PM, Gas2No99 said:

So if she got $55M for a peephole video of her walking around naked, how much does the Hulkster get from Gawker for the invasion of his privacy due to that sex tape they publicly released?

Hulk Hogan Takes Stand in His Sex-Tape Lawsuit Against Gawker

 

 

Well, I guess here's my answer. The Hulkster made out better than SHE did:

 

Hulk Hogan awarded $115m in Gawker sex tape case

• 1 hour ago
•  
• From the section US & Canada

Image copyrightAP

Image captionHulk Hogan said the release of the sex tape hurt his career

A Florida jury has awarded Hulk Hogan $115m (£79m) after the gossip news website Gawker published a sex tape of the retired professional wrestler.

Mr Hogan's legal team argued the New York-based website violated his privacy and the video was not newsworthy.

The case, which pitted freedom of the press against a celebrity's right to privacy, has been closely watched. 

The video was posted in 2012 after Mr Hogan was secretly recorded having sex with his friend's wife.

Lawyers for Gawker argued that although jurors might find the website's actions distasteful, the concept of freedom of the press was more important to uphold.

Mr Hogan's lawyers said Gawker did not contact him or the woman in the video before the video was published.

"This is not only his victory today, but also anyone else who's been victimised by tabloid journalism," Hogan lawyer David Houston said outside the courtroom. 

Gawker, known for its acerbic tone and aggressive coverage of celebrities, maintained that Mr Hogan's private life was newsworthy because he made it part of his public persona.

"He has consistently chosen to put his private life out there, for public consumption," Gawker's lawyer Michael Sullivan said during the trial. 

Image copyrightAP

Image captionGawker's founder Nick Denton and journalist AJ Daulerio testified at the trial

However, Hogan lawyer Kenneth Turkel said during the trial that Gawker typified the often anything-goes world of internet publishing. 

The verdict could lead to more caution among Internet news websites, which frequently have less editorial oversight than traditional media outlets.

Gawker's founder Nick Denton and journalist AJ Daulerio were held liable in the lawsuit.

Even before the verdict was announced, Gawker said in a statement that an appeal was likely. Large jury awards are often reduced during the appeals process.

Mr Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, said the release of the sex tape hurt his career. 

He was one of the most popular professional wrestlers of the 1980s and 1990s and later starred in his own reality television show with his family.

In recent years, Mr Hogan's personal problems have conflicted with his one-time child-friendly persona. 

His longtime employer World Wrestling Entertainment cut ties with Mr Hogan in July after he was recorded using racial slurs.

 

 

[RutgersJetFan]

That. Is. Awesome. F-ck Gawker.

[JetsFanatic]

On March 7, 2016 at 7:40 PM, TuscanyTile2 said:

I'm not making light of the situation but nobody physically assaulted her.  And in the cases of actual physical assault how many victims get awarded anywhere close to $55 million in a civil case? 

OJ Simpson murdered 3 people and had to pay $25 million.  Not that $25 million isn't a ton of money but EA getting paid more than double the amount paid for 3 murders is absurd.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/11/us/jury-decides-simpson-must-pay-25-million-in-punitive-award.html?pagewanted=all

I agree. I love it when people applaud these ridiculous monetary awards.  All it does it make things cost more for everyone. The only person who deserves punishment is the asswhole who taped her.

[Larz]

Just now, JetsFanatic said:

I agree. I love it when people applaud these ridiculous monetary awards.  All it does it make things cost more for everyone. The only person who deserves punishment is the a$$hole who videos her.

if you think $55 million or even $115 million moves the needle in insurance, I can assure you it doesn't.  Insurance companies take out insurance for large losses.  They just pass it on to a reinsurance company. 

These types of events are baked into the rates already by the actuaries, it would take a $10 billion dollar award to make an insurance guy spit out his coffee

[TuscanyTile2]

8 minutes ago, Larz said:

if you think $55 million or even $115 million moves the needle in insurance, I can assure you it doesn't.  Insurance companies take out insurance for large losses.  They just pass it on to a reinsurance company. 

These types of events are baked into the rates already by the actuaries, it would take a $10 billion dollar award to make an insurance guy spit out his coffee

Do you really think this money doesn't ultimately filter down to the public?  AIG is a reinsurance company.  They were bailed out by the public.  Not saying $115M is going to cause the need for a bailout but as the old joke goes "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money"

[Larz]

5 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

Do you really think this money doesn't ultimately filter down to the public?  AIG is a reinsurance company.  They were bailed out by the public.  Not saying $115M is going to cause the need for a bailout but as the old joke goes "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money"

its about scale. 

 

The U.S. property/casualty industry had a strong first half in 2015. Overall net income after taxes (profits) in the property/casualty (P/C) insurance industry increased by $5.0 billion (up 19.2 percent) in the first half of 2015 to $31.0 billion from $26.0 billion in the year earlier period. The industry’s overall rate of return (profitability) on capital—as measured by policyholders’ surplus—rose from 8.1 percent in the first half of 2014 to 9.2 percent in the first half of 2015. Both insurance operations and investments contributed to the strong showing.

Net written premium growth continued at its prior pace—up 4.1 percent in the first half of 2015, the same rate of growth as in the first half of 2014. The industry’s insurance operations, as captured in its combined ratio, improved by 1.3 points to 97.6 during the first half of 2015 compared to 98.9 a year earlier. (A ratio under 100 means that the industry paid out less in claims and expenses than it took in via premiums; lower is better.) Maintaining combined ratios below 100 is absolutely essential in order for the industry to continue posting reasonable levels of profitability in an interest rate environment that remains challenging. Despite the low interest rates, the industry’s $31.6 billion in net investment gains—consisting of net investment income plus realized capital gains—were the highest for the first half of a year since ISO’s records began in 1986.

 

these are just profits, you really can't see the claims or stop loss figures, but if the industry is making $62,000,000,000 a year, after an appeals process and the award is lowered to $30 million and payed out 4 years from now, the erin andrews award is change in the couch for these guys

[TuscanyTile2]

30 minutes ago, Larz said:

its about scale. 

 

The U.S. property/casualty industry had a strong first half in 2015. Overall net income after taxes (profits) in the property/casualty (P/C) insurance industry increased by $5.0 billion (up 19.2 percent) in the first half of 2015 to $31.0 billion from $26.0 billion in the year earlier period. The industry’s overall rate of return (profitability) on capital—as measured by policyholders’ surplus—rose from 8.1 percent in the first half of 2014 to 9.2 percent in the first half of 2015. Both insurance operations and investments contributed to the strong showing.

Net written premium growth continued at its prior pace—up 4.1 percent in the first half of 2015, the same rate of growth as in the first half of 2014. The industry’s insurance operations, as captured in its combined ratio, improved by 1.3 points to 97.6 during the first half of 2015 compared to 98.9 a year earlier. (A ratio under 100 means that the industry paid out less in claims and expenses than it took in via premiums; lower is better.) Maintaining combined ratios below 100 is absolutely essential in order for the industry to continue posting reasonable levels of profitability in an interest rate environment that remains challenging. Despite the low interest rates, the industry’s $31.6 billion in net investment gains—consisting of net investment income plus realized capital gains—were the highest for the first half of a year since ISO’s records began in 1986.

 

these are just profits, you really can't see the claims or stop loss figures, but if the industry is making $62,000,000,000 a year, after an appeals process and the award is lowered to $30 million and payed out 4 years from now, the erin andrews award is change in the couch for these guys

 

You seem to know a lot about this industry. My understanding of the AIG bailout was that things like pension funds - which weren't allowed to invest in certain businesses due to them not having a high enough rating (AAA) - were allowed to because AIG (which was rated AAA) agreed to insure them.  Thus these businesses were sort of "honorary AAA rated". 

For this, AIG received a steady stream of payments from these firms (which made plenty of business due to their "honorary AAA rating").  But ultimately AIG couldn't back these policies if there were systemic issues (eg large numbers of these firms failed simultaneously).

So in short, AIG re-insurance worked for small failures (a handful of companies failing) but not for systemic failures.  To me the whole thing felt like a complete scam because AIG was allowed to take insane risks knowing that profits would be privatized while losses would be socialized.  And when systemic failure inevitably happened, their bills fell on to you and I (and the rest of the taxpayers).

So to me saying "AIG had a good year" is basically like saying they scammed the public out of more money than usual this year. 

[Larz]

18 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

 

You seem to know a lot about this industry. My understanding of the AIG bailout was that things like pension funds that weren't allowed to invest in certain businesses due to them not having a high enough rating (AAA), were allowed to because AIG - which was rated AAA - agreed to insure them and thus they were sort of "honorary AAA rated company".  For this, AIG received a steady stream of payments from these firms (which made plenty of business from pension funds and the like).  But ultimately AIG couldn't back these policies if there were systemic issues (eg many of these firms failed simultaneously).

So in short, AIG was basically a scam.  And when systemic failure happened, their bills fell on to you and I (and the rest of the taxpayers).

So to me saying "AIG had a good year" is basically like saying they scammed the public out of more money than usual this year. 

you are not wrong !  I worked for bluecross blueshield for 3 years.  I was an account manager so I occasionally had to go to underwriting and say "20% increase in rates this year ?  WTF ??" then they would show me the claims and explain how they got to that number.

the larger groups with the good brokers will actually ask you about your stoploss assumptions and try to negotiate them.  One of my groups had a kid with really tough situation going on, a $1.5 million dollar claim but it only impacted the claims up to the stop loss.  Like any insurance the more you buy the more it costs, so the large claims do impact premiums eventually, its just that unless its way above the normal, they have already allowed for it

when you are dealing with millions and millions of claims, they become very very very predictable.  its "the law of large numbers"

my mentor explained the insurance industry as a legal scam.  as their costs go up, they pass it on to the customers and maintain profit margins and overhead, and the thing is all the carriers have the same claims experience, so competition doesn't do anything for you, you can't go from one to another (you actually get "punished" for that by underwriters, lol) and get better premiums. 

so unless this is an unusually bad year for jury awards, it won't impact premiums

 

[TuscanyTile2]

5 minutes ago, Larz said:

you are not wrong !  I worked for bluecross blueshield for 3 years.  I was an account manager so I occasionally had to go to underwriting and say "20% increase in rates this year ?  WTF ??" then they would show me the claims and explain how they got to that number.

the larger groups with the good brokers will actually ask you about your stoploss assumptions and try to negotiate them.  One of my groups had a kid with really tough situation going on, a $1.5 million dollar claim but it only impacted the claims up to the stop loss.  Like any insurance the more you buy the more it costs, so the large claims do impact premiums eventually, its just that unless its way above the normal, they have already allowed for it

when you are dealing with millions and millions of claims, they become very very very predictable.  its "the law of large numbers"

my mentor explained the insurance industry as a legal scam.  as their costs go up, they pass it on to the customers and maintain profit margins and overhead, and the thing is all the carriers have the same claims experience, so competition doesn't do anything for you, you can't go from one to another (you actually get "punished" for that by underwriters, lol) and get better premiums. 

so unless this is an unusually bad year for jury awards, it won't impact premiums

 

Interesting to me that your mentor even said the insurance industry is legal scam.  I mean, I think insurance *can* be done in a non-scam way.  But if these firms know they're going to be bailed out (allowing them to take insane levels of risk) then it changes everything.  I'm also against FDIC insurance btw (same reasoning).  If people are on the hook w/ no safety net they'll be a lot more picky about the activities of the companies they invest in. 

But because we live in a world of bailouts, don't these sort of judgments fall on the balance sheet of companies like AIG and thus ultimately the public *is* going to pay for this lawsuit when the next systemic failure happens? (which will probably be within the next couple of years - possibly even this year).