Musk to stand trial in defamation suit by cave rescuer

[Lorenzoid]

Maybe someone knows how to upload a copy of the court's judgment. That would answer the question.

Never mind. I see it was a jury trial. We may never know what the jurors were thinking.

 

[pauldw]

Wow. I'm not an expert on defamation law, but it's my impression slander suits are a lot easier to win in England than America, so perhaps the plaintiff should have started there, since he's from there. Oh, well. I guess all we can do now is see if Musk builds a dive boat for his cybertruck to tow.

 

[lexvil]

So one guy tells another guy to shove his “idea” and gets an insult in return and than seemingly thinks he can go after the deep pocket guy. I would have agreed with the jury were I on it and been pissed off that they took my time to listen to the whining.

 

[runsongas]

How on earth did Musk manage to win?

He could afford better lawyers

 

[pauldw]

So one guy tells another guy to shove his “idea” and gets an insult in return and than seemingly thinks he can go after the deep pocket guy. I would have agreed with the jury were I on it and been pissed off that they took my time to listen to the whining.

I would've said, "Too arrogant to apologize? That's about to cost you."

 

[kafkaland]

My best guess is that the jury took this as two big egos insulting each other in public, and that the trial was a waste of everyone’s time.

 

[Divectionist]

$190m - what a ridiculous sum for this crap.

 

[lowwall]

How on earth did Musk manage to win?

There are several elements required to win a defamation suit. The obvious ones were met here. The statement was published, false, and unprivileged. The likely sticking point was that the statement be "injurious". For people bringing a defamation suit, it's not enough to show that their feelings were hurt, they must be able to show that the statement caused them actual injury in some form such as direct monetary losses, ostracism from family/friends, medical costs related to treatment for depression or stress-derived ailments, etc.

To show that Musk's statements were not injurious, his lawyers introduced evidence including Mr. Unsworth receiving honors from the Thai and British governments, that Mr. Unsworth was paid for cooperating or participating in two documentaries and three books about the rescue, that he never lost wages or had medical expenses related to the tweet. On the other side, Mr. Unsworth's lawyers didn't have any specific damages to show.

The fact that it took the jury less than an hour to come to a decision is telling. It takes almost that long to get everyone settled into the jury room and go over the judge's instructions. It's likely the jury was unanimous from the start in finding the tweets did not meet the injurious requirement.

I have to wonder if this was all a gamble by Unsworth's US lawyers that Musk would settle for a couple million bucks to make the case go away. They had to know they were extremely likely to lose in an actual trial. I just hope Mr. Unsworth agreed to this on a pure contingency basis, so he's at least not out of pocket for this mess

 

[lowwall]

Wow. I'm not an expert on defamation law, but it's my impression slander suits are a lot easier to win in England than America, so perhaps the plaintiff should have started there, since he's from there.

That was my first thought as well. But it appears that merely insulting someone is not defamatory under UK law.

 

[John Bantin]

The guy in Thailand will be long forgotten but Teslas will probably be condemned forever to be called Pedo-Cars.