No, it will be because a plutocrat decided to fund a lawsuit unrelated to his reason for disliking them (and apparently influenced the process of that lawsuit with the aim of destroying Gawker to the detriment of Bollea), and abused the inherent bias of our courts towards parties with disproportionate resources.

Bollea may well have had a valid case against Gawker, but we'll never know. The idea that a case with a side funded by a vengeful billionaire could be fairly decided in our court system is absurd.

Dude, my dude, Thiel just paid for part of Hogan's legal fees.

That money's not gonna conjure up evidence from the luminiferous aether.

The issue is that Bollea dropped a part of the lawsuit that would have allowed the award to be paid out by the insurer - that reduces both the likelihood and amount of money that Bollea will receive, on the face of it, acting in a manner contrary to his own best interest, and in Thiel, lawsuit financier's, stated interests.

>acting in a manner contrary to his own best interest

Hogan is a famous, well-liked millionaire[0] already. And he almost certainly doesn't like Gawker.

So maybe he thought, "I can give up some of these millions and these parasites will not publish another damned lie again". In return, he also gets the eternal gratitude of people who hate Gawker (all decent human beings).

Seems like his actions align quite well with his interests.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_Hogan#Finances

Yes, I can see the motivations of someone who confessed bankruptcy or near bankruptcy who initially sued Gawker for damages - got a very large award, and only after Thiel got involved decided to drop a part of the lawsuit that might help him actually receive all/some/any of the award - as not being worthy of any question at all.

Your own link says he is no longer a millionaire. He changed from financial motivations to moral superiority after the investment of someone who wants to destroy Gawker (not that Hogan might not also want that)... reducing your ability to receive damages doesn't seem to align to me as well as it does to you.

Eh, it's a difference of a few million, maybe tens of millions. A small price to pay to watch this pustulent sore on humanity's face collapse and burn as a result of your actions.

Me, I'd take that cut.

People with more resources win more lawsuits. Do you believe that this is because they are more frequently wronged?

Gawker didn't lose this trial because they ran out of money to pay their lawyers, they lost because a jury of their peers found they were guilty as sin.

They lost because a billionaire, who didn't like them for reasons entirely independent of the merits of the case, spent time and resources canvassing for opportunities to punish Gawker.

As Thiel himself said, "even someone like Terry Bollea who is a millionaire and famous and a successful person didn’t quite have the resources to do this alone."

Thiel also said that, but for his involvement the plaintiffs would have accepted a pittance. The outcome is largely a consequence of an the intervention of an outside party, not merely the merits of the case itself.

Gawker is a company with $45 million in revenue. They have plenty of money to defend themselves from a single lawsuit. If anything, Thiel just leveled the playing field.

Well, in terms of resources, Thiel has more than Denton, who in turn has more than Bollea.

I think it's a moot point, since both Thiel and Denton have enough money that throwing more money at lawyers would do practically no good. Yes, people with more resources win more lawsuits, but there are diminishing returns.

> No, it will be because a plutocrat decided to fund a lawsuit unrelated to his reason for disliking them

It was directly related his reason for disliking them. In fact, it was practically the same reason.

> and apparently influenced the process of that lawsuit with the aim of destroying Gawker to the detriment of Bollea

How so? Bollea was already a millionaire; he didn't need the money, and he wasn't materially damaged in any case. He wasn't going after Gawker for the payout; he wanted to see them punished for what they did to him, and dissuaded from doing it to anyone else. This outcome serves his interests much better than a bit of extra money would.