Rudy Giuliani must give control of luxury items and Manhattan apartment to Georgia election workers he defamed, judge rules

[ThatRobGuy]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/22/politics/rudy-giuliani-bankruptcy-georgia-election-workers/index.html

In addition to the Trump campaign fees and the New York apartment, Giuliani must also turn over a collection of several watches, including ones given to him by European presidents after the September 11, 2001, attacks; a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey and other sports memorabilia; and a 1980 Mercedes once owned by the Hollywood star Lauren Bacall. Additionally, the judge ordered that Giuliani turn over his television, items of furniture, his television and jewelry.

 

[DaisyDay]

He turned their lives upside down about five years ago. He is an elite who tramples innocent, hardworking people seemingly for sport and political advantage. Go Maga!

 

[Vambram]

He turned their lives upside down about five years ago. He is an elite who tramples innocent, hardworking people seemingly for sport and political advantage. Go Maga!

He got targeted by a liberal leftist "justice system" and the leftist liberal judge is showing his extreme bias. This is more evidence and proof of the weaponization of justice and the lawfare waged against Donald Trump and his friends and allies.

 

[DaisyDay]

He got targeted by a liberal leftist "justice system" and the leftist liberal judge is showing his extreme bias. This is more evidence and proof of the weaponization of justice and the lawfare waged against Donald Trump and his friends and allies.

That is an alternative fact. Giuliani picked out these election workers who were doing their jobs. He named them which exposed them to death threats from overly zealous Magadonians. What he did to these innocent workers was done knowingly, for political advantage as part of the effort to keep Trump in power.

Your claim that any “leftist liberal judge” misapplied the law is utterly baseless. Giuliani and others defamed the pair. They sued for defamation and the JURY found in their favor.

 

[Vambram]

That is an alternative fact. Giuliani picked out these election workers who were doing their jobs. He named them which exposed them to death threats from overly zealous Magadonians. What he did to these innocent workers was done knowingly, for political advantage as part of the effort to keep Trump in power.

Your claim that any “leftist liberal judge” misapplied the law is utterly baseless. Giuliani and others defamed the pair. They sued for defamation and the JURY found in their favor.

Weaponization of justice and progressive liberal lawfare.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

He got targeted by a liberal leftist "justice system" and the leftist liberal judge is showing his extreme bias. This is more evidence and proof of the weaponization of justice and the lawfare waged against Donald Trump and his friends and allies.

In the instance of this case, I think it was the jury who opted to expand the amount of damages.

Perhaps I'm remembering a few details wrong...but I believe how that one went is that the two women were originally seeking a smaller amount (and their lawyer had tried to figure out exactly what his net worth was in order to gauge what the demand should be), and it was the jury who decided to tack on an additional $75 million in punitive damages.


Now, I think one can say that $75 million in punitive damages could be considered excessive.

I personally think Rudy went off the deep end a while ago, and he definitely caused tangible harm to those two women in ways that will make it impossible for them to safely reenter a normal life or the workforce. So, enough money that they never have to work again is fair. ($75M would've more than covered it without that extra $75M being tacked on)

However, the purpose of these matters should be to compensate the victims, not necessarily permanently "ruin" the person who wronged them. So I think it's reasonable to suggest that some members of the jury perhaps had some biases.


Obviously, the contention/debate will be "How do you put a price tag on a person no longer being able to safely reenter the workforce, and require private security for the rest of their lives?...and what would that price tag be?"


That's a good question...I'm not sure.


But just as a particular point of reference that I feel illustrates how the purpose of Tort law (in the public perspective), and the way it's being leveraged, has changed

You had Rudy on the hook for $150 million for defamation of two people
You had Alex Jones on the hook for almost a billion for defamation of ~20 families

Compared to:
When OJ lost the civil trial and was found liable for the wrongful deaths of two people (IE: he carved up Ron Goldman and basically decapitated his ex wife with a butcher knife), the damages awarded were $33 million.


Something's askew there... Either one's too much, or the other's too little.
I'm not sure how "$33 million for murdering two people" and "$150 million for defaming two people" exist within the same compensatory tort system.

(even after 18 years of non-payment on the part of OJ, and the hefty accrued interest that piled up, the amount owed still hadn't reached what Rudy owes now)


I'm not sure what the "right answer" should be, but I'd like to think that we haven't reached a level of political tribalism where partisan defamation and political conspiracy theories are viewed as "worse" than cutting peoples heads off, and then writing books like "If I did it" to tastelessly cash on the event and basically brag about getting away with murder.

 

[DaisyDay]

Weaponization of justice and progressive liberal lawfare.

Giuliani defamed them repeatedly, told lies about them and exposed them to harassment and death threats. And you whine that the jury found him guilty and awarded damages?

Okay, civil justice is leftist. I prefer that to rich elites running roughshod over the people with no repercussions.

 

[Vambram]

Giuliani defamed them repeatedly, told lies about them and exposed them to harassment and death threats. And you whine that the jury found him guilty and awarded damages?

Okay, civil justice is leftist. I prefer that to rich elites running roughshod over the people with no repercussions.

The $150 million dollars awarded is extremely excessive. That is indeed weaponization of the justice system and lawfare.

 

[DaisyDay]

In the instance of this case, I think it was the jury who opted to expand the amount of damages.

Perhaps I'm remembering a few details wrong...but I believe how that one went is that the two women were originally seeking a smaller amount (and their lawyer had tried to figure out exactly what his net worth was in order to gauge what the demand should be), and it was the jury who decided to tack on an additional $75 million in punitive damages.


Now, I think one can say that $75 million in punitive damages could be considered excessive.

I personally think Rudy went off the deep end a while ago, and he definitely caused tangible harm to those two women in ways that will make it impossible for them to safely reenter a normal life or the workforce. So, enough money that they never have to work again is fair. ($75M would've more than covered it without that extra $75M being tacked on)

However, the purpose of these matters should be to compensate the victims, not necessarily permanently "ruin" the person who wronged them. So I think it's reasonable to suggest that some members of the jury perhaps had some biases.


Obviously, the contention/debate will be "How do you put a price tag on a person no longer being able to safely reenter the workforce, and require private security for the rest of their lives?...and what would that price tag be?"


That's a good question...I'm not sure.


But just as a particular point of reference that I feel illustrates how the purpose of Tort law (in the public perspective), and the way it's being leveraged, has changed

You had Rudy on the hook for $150 million for defamation of two people
You had Alex Jones on the hook for almost a billion for defamation of ~20 families

Compared to:
When OJ lost the civil trial and was found liable for the wrongful deaths of two people (IE: he carved up Ron Goldman and basically decapitated his ex wife with a butcher knife), the damages awarded were $33 million.


Something's askew there... Either one's too much, or the other's too little.
I'm not sure how "$33 million for murdering two people" and "$150 million for defaming two people" exist within the same legal system.

(even after 18 years of non-payment on the part of OJ, and the hefty accrued interest that piled up, the amount owed still hadn't reached what Rudy owes now)

Actual damages aside, wouldn’t punitive damages have to be at least in part on what would be punitive to the person? A harsh fine on a minimum wage, indebted worker (say $250) would be utterly trivial to a millionaire.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Actual damages aside, wouldn’t punitive damages have to be at least in part on what would be punitive to the person? A harsh fine on a minimum wage, indebted worker (say $250) would be utterly trivial to a millionaire.

Right, I understand the need to "right size" punitive amounts in order for it to have a deterrence factor.

... But it's the goal to be a deterrence or completely financially ruin a person who they don't like?

Like I noted, when Oj Simpson was found liable in the civil trial, The damages awarded (both compensatory and punitive) totaled up to $33 million dollars.

How did we get from that, to things like high dollar defamation settlements against people who don't even have that much money that's being asked?

Is the goal to punish enough to be a deterrence, or is the goal to have him living in a cardboard box begging for change?

 

[DaisyDay]

The $150 million dollars awarded is extremely excessive. That is indeed weaponization of the justice system and lawfare.

Not merely excessive but extremely excessive? What amount would be punishment for a man, an excessively rich man, that harassed these women, causing them to leave their homes in fear for their lives and wellbeing, held them up to public contempt so he could try to keep his client in power?

They have a real and legitimate claim. What excuse does Rudy have for what he did, not just once or twice but over an extended period?

 

[DaisyDay]

Right, I understand the need to "right size" punitive amounts in order for it to have a deterrence factor.

... But it's the goal to be a deterrence or completely financially ruin a person who they don't like?

Like I noted, when Oj Simpson was found liable in the civil trial, The damages awarded (both compensatory and punitive) totaled up to $33 million dollars.

How did we get from that, to things like high dollar defamation settlements against people who don't even have that much money that's being asked?

Is the goal to punish enough to be a deterrence, or is the goal to have him living in a cardboard box begging for change?

Who doesn’t have the money? Poor baby has to sell his luxury car and collection of watches. He still has his pension.

If he is ruined, it’s more due to his losing his bar license and Trump stiffing him than the size of the award. He could’ve settled.

 

[Arcangl86]

He got targeted by a liberal leftist "justice system" and the leftist liberal judge is showing his extreme bias. This is more evidence and proof of the weaponization of justice and the lawfare waged against Donald Trump and his friends and allies.

What evidence do you have that Judge Liman is a "leftist liberal"? And how exactly is he showing bias since the amount of the award was determined by the jury?

ETA: So upon reading the order, I discovered that this judge isn't even the judge that presided over the defamation case. He's a different judge that was asked to issue an order requiring Rudy to comply with the initial judgment because he was refusing to pay. Makes your claim of "lawfare" even weaker.

 

[Vambram]

What evidence do you have that Judge Liman is a "leftist liberal"? And how exactly is he showing bias since the amount of the award was determined by the jury?

ETA: So upon reading the order, I discovered that this judge isn't even the judge that presided over the defamation case. He's a different judge that was asked to issue an order requiring Rudy to comply with the initial judgment because he was refusing to pay. Makes your claim of "lawfare" even weaker.

The additional judges simply means what I already know. There are progressive left-wing liberal judges who will do anything that they can do to harm friends and allies of Donald Trump.

 

[Arcangl86]

The additional judges simply means what I already know. There are progressive left-wing liberal judges who will do anything that they can do to harm friends and allies of Donald Trump.

How do you know this? Do you have sort of special knowledge to indicate that this judge os one of these judges you are certain exists without evidence.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Who doesn’t have the money? Poor baby has to sell his luxury car and collection of watches. He still has his pension.

If he is ruined, it’s more due to his losing his bar license and Trump stiffing him than the size of the award. He could’ve settled.

So, based on the tone of your post, then the civil case is less about actual restitution, and more about "proving a point to Rudy and his ilk"...

According to CBS, Rudy's net worth is under $50 million, so basically in a civil trial, they stuck him on the hook for triple his net worth.

To you use your relative comparison from before, if some warehouse worker had committed the same infraction, and had a net worth of $100k. That'd be like hitting them for over a quarter of a million dollars.


That goes back to what I mentioned before, which is that the tenor of tort law (in the public perception) has evidently changed.

(Again, to state for the record, I think it's perfectly reasonable to give those two women enough money that they can retire comfortably in a new house somewhere, and to tack on a little something extra to "Give Rudy something to think about"...I completely get that)

What was intended for making the wronged party "whole" (or as close as it can get), and adding some punitive aspect to deter the behavior in the future, has seemingly morphed into a vehicle for satisfying some need for "political vengeance" to make everyone else "feel good" that someone they didn't like got hammered as much as possible on a civil judgement.


I think the evidence for this is the vast disparity in amounts we see in various other high-profile civil trials between ones that don't have a political component vs. the ones that do.

OJ Simpson wrongful death of two people: $33 million

Johnny Depp defamation suit against his ex: $10 million

Oberlin College (via a faculty led protest) in Ohio defamed a local bakery (and the owner) and falsely accused them of racial profiling which led to the business suffering and the owner getting harassed for close to a year and their property vandalized: $25 million

Ford motor company when they got hit for having defective seatbelts: $32 million

The Virginia Train Derailment where it hit a gas station and caused permanent injuries to some of the people inside: $60 million

The Sackler Family/Perdue Pharma (the ones largely behind the massive opioid crisis that we still deal with to this day) got hit for $2 billion.


Now, compare those to these (considering the amounts relative to act in question, and the impact)

Alex Jones getting hit for a billion
Fox getting hit for nearly a billion
Rudy getting hit for $150 million


In the realm of defamation & libel cases, it would seem as if all of the ones with a political component are shattering records in comparison to non-political defamation cases of the previous decade.

The same is true going in the other direction as well for the record... I'm sure you recall that Nick Sandmann kid...the one who was wearing a MAGA hat and smirking, and CNN and a few others distorted what happened to make him out to be a villain. I don't what the settled amount was, but Sandmann's lawyers were originally shooting for over $200 million against CNN and a few other outlets.

 

[DaisyDay]

So, based on the tone of your post, then the civil case is less about actual restitution, and more about "proving a point to Rudy and his ilk"...

According to CBS, Rudy's net worth is under $50 million, so basically in a civil trial, they stuck him on the hook for triple his net worth.

To you use your relative comparison from before, if some warehouse worker had committed the same infraction, and had a net worth of $100k. That'd be like hitting them for over a quarter of a million dollars.


That goes back to what I mentioned before, which is that the tenor of tort law (in the public perception) has evidently changed.

(Again, to state for the record, I think it's perfectly reasonable to give those two women enough money that they can retire comfortably in a new house somewhere, and to tack on a little something extra to "Give Rudy something to think about"...I completely get that)

What was intended for making the wronged party "whole" (or as close as it can get), and adding some punitive aspect to deter the behavior in the future, has seemingly morphed into a vehicle for satisfying some need for "political vengeance" to make everyone else "feel good" that someone they didn't like got hammered as much as possible on a civil judgement.


I think the evidence for this is the vast disparity in amounts we see in various other high-profile civil trials between ones that don't have a political component vs. the ones that do.

OJ Simpson wrongful death of two people: $33 million

Johnny Depp defamation suit against his ex: $10 million

Oberlin College (via a faculty led protest) in Ohio defamed a local bakery (and the owner) and falsely accused them of racial profiling which led to the business suffering and the owner getting harassed for close to a year and their property vandalized: $25 million

Ford motor company when they got hit for having defective seatbelts: $32 million

The Virginia Train Derailment where it hit a gas station and caused permanent injuries to some of the people inside: $60 million

The Sackler Family/Perdue Pharma (the ones largely behind the massive opioid crisis that we still deal with to this day) got hit for $2 billion.


Now, compare those to these (considering the amounts relative to act in question, and the impact)

Alex Jones getting hit for a billion
Fox getting hit for nearly a billion
Rudy getting hit for $150 million


In the realm of defamation & libel cases, it would seem as if all of the ones with a political component are shattering records in comparison to non-political defamation cases of the previous decade.

The same is true going in the other direction as well for the record... I'm sure you recall that Nick Sandmann kid...the one who was wearing a MAGA hat and smirking, and CNN and a few others distorted what happened to make him out to be a villain. I don't what the settled amount was, but Sandmann's lawyers were originally shooting for over $200 million against CNN and a few other outlets.

No, the punitive portion of the judgment is meant to punish. The case was brought to make the plaintiffs whole, possibly to act as a deterrent.

 

[iluvatar5150]

So, based on the tone of your post, then the civil case is less about actual restitution, and more about "proving a point to Rudy and his ilk"...

According to CBS, Rudy's net worth is under $50 million, so basically in a civil trial, they stuck him on the hook for triple his net worth.

To you use your relative comparison from before, if some warehouse worker had committed the same infraction, and had a net worth of $100k. That'd be like hitting them for over a quarter of a million dollars.


That goes back to what I mentioned before, which is that the tenor of tort law (in the public perception) has evidently changed.

(Again, to state for the record, I think it's perfectly reasonable to give those two women enough money that they can retire comfortably in a new house somewhere, and to tack on a little something extra to "Give Rudy something to think about"...I completely get that)

What was intended for making the wronged party "whole" (or as close as it can get), and adding some punitive aspect to deter the behavior in the future, has seemingly morphed into a vehicle for satisfying some need for "political vengeance" to make everyone else "feel good" that someone they didn't like got hammered as much as possible on a civil judgement.


I think the evidence for this is the vast disparity in amounts we see in various other high-profile civil trials between ones that don't have a political component vs. the ones that do.

OJ Simpson wrongful death of two people: $33 million

Johnny Depp defamation suit against his ex: $10 million

Oberlin College (via a faculty led protest) in Ohio defamed a local bakery (and the owner) and falsely accused them of racial profiling which led to the business suffering and the owner getting harassed for close to a year and their property vandalized: $25 million

Ford motor company when they got hit for having defective seatbelts: $32 million

The Virginia Train Derailment where it hit a gas station and caused permanent injuries to some of the people inside: $60 million

The Sackler Family/Perdue Pharma (the ones largely behind the massive opioid crisis that we still deal with to this day) got hit for $2 billion.


Now, compare those to these (considering the amounts relative to act in question, and the impact)

Alex Jones getting hit for a billion
Fox getting hit for nearly a billion
Rudy getting hit for $150 million


In the realm of defamation & libel cases, it would seem as if all of the ones with a political component are shattering records in comparison to non-political defamation cases of the previous decade.

The same is true going in the other direction as well for the record... I'm sure you recall that Nick Sandmann kid...the one who was wearing a MAGA hat and smirking, and CNN and a few others distorted what happened to make him out to be a villain. I don't what the settled amount was, but Sandmann's lawyers were originally shooting for over $200 million against CNN and a few other outlets.

Your comparisons are flawed.

For one thing - the Sackler bankruptcy deal isn't done yet. It was originally worth about $8 billion but was overturned by SCOTUS for being overly generous to the Sacklers, so it's likely to wind up quite a bit higher than that.

The Ford payout came from them settling the case after the jury deadlocked.

I'm not sure how the Depp/Heard suit would apply here - you had two famous people who were mean to each other but who are both still rich, who both still work, and neither of whom were terrorized. The bulk of the judgments were compensatory in nature which, I presume, would cover them for lost work.

Beyond that, your other two non-political examples are from 1997 (OJ) and 2000 (train derailment). I would imagine that over the last 25 years, yes, juries have become less likely to let deep-pocketed offenders off with a slap on the wrist, especially when the conduct was so deliberate and repetitive as the examples you cited.

 

[High Fidelity]

Good. Vile man.

 

[Vambram]

No, the punitive portion of the judgment is meant to punish. The case was brought to make the plaintiffs whole, possibly to act as a deterrent.

The punitive portion is triple Guillani's net worth and also triple the amount paid in the other lawsuits which @ThatRobGuy mentioned in his post. The weaponization of lawfare by the left wing liberals is one of the more disgusting things I have seen in "the justice system" quote - unquote in all of my years upon this earth.