Free Republic

Alex Jones on Thursday moved to liquidate his personal assets, agreeing to demands from the families of Sandy Hook victims whom he owes more than $1.5 billion in damages over his lies about the 2012 school massacre. ...Prior to Thursday, Jones had resisted converting his personal bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation. But facing mounting legal pressure, he reversed course and caved to the demands of the Sandy Hook families, who have still not seen a penny from Jones since juries in Connecticut and Texas found him liable in 2022 for defamation and emotional distress. His lawyers said in a...

A New York jury found National Rifle Association (NRA) boss Wayne LaPierre liable in a civil case on Friday, ordering him to pay $4.3 million in damages for the mismanagement and misuse of charitable funds. The verdict concludes a trial in the civil lawsuit brought by the Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York, accusing Mr. LaPierre of questionable financial practices during his tenure from 2014 to 2022. The jury found that Mr. LaPierre violated his fiduciary duties, causing $5.4 million in damages to the NRA. Notably, they recognized that he had repaid just over $1 million to the...

The claim was that the Covid vaccines were safe and effective. Yet, the manufacturers were granted immunity from liability for any harm these vaccines may have caused. As a substitute adjudication mechanism, the government established the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). Thus far nearly 13,000 injury claims for damages done by the Covid vaccines have been submitted to the CICP. Only 1,800 of these claims have been assessed by the CICP: 1,728 were denied, 72 were determined to be "eligible for compensation," and six injured persons have been paid an average of $2,148 each. Inasmuch as some of the harms...

Former President Donald Trump is on the hook for damages in E. Jean Carroll’s upcoming trial accusing him of defaming her by claiming she made up her sexual abuse allegations against him, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Trump’s 2019 claim that the 79-year-old “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist had concocted the abuse charges “to get publicity” was a lie made with “actual malice,” Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote. Kaplan in his ruling cited a Manhattan federal jury’s May verdict finding Trump, 77, liable for sexual abuse and defamation — and ordering him to pay $5 million in damages —...

Severe thunderstorms in the first half of 2023 caused a record amount in insured losses, underscoring the impact of climate change on extreme weather events, according to new research for the Swiss Re Group. A recent report from the group found severe thunderstorms in the first six months of the year caused $34 billion in damages, the highest insured losses ever recorded in a six-month period. Ten events prompted losses of $1 billion and more each, compared to an annual average of six events during the past 10 years. The most affected state was Texas, the report found.

NAPLES - A southwest Florida man is accused of attacking a nurse and stripping off his clothes before flooding a hospital's emergency rooms. Louis Sepesi, 53, became agitated while in a waiting room at the North Collier Hospital in Naples, Florida, on Saturday, according to the Collier County Sheriff's Office. He barged into the emergency room, pushed a patient and then pushed a nurse in the head. After the hospital staff got him into a room in an effort to keep him from disturbing other patients, he took off his clothes and pulled a high-pressure water pipe from the wall,...

A former special operator who rescued refugees from Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban in 2021 and whose business was destroyed by a CNN story he says was false and defamatory, won a significant procedural victory in a Florida court in his libel lawsuit against the network. In an order allowing Zachary Young to sue for punitive damages, Judge William S. Henry in Bay County quoted startling language from CNN employees' internal emails and texts regarding the story that aired on Nov. 11, 2021. Mr. Young, a security consultant with extensive military and government security experience, launched an effort...

Alternate headline: Pottery Barn rules apply to walkouts. In an 8-1 decision in which only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fully dissented, the Supreme Court ruled today that unions have to reimburse employers for damages caused by striking workers. The National Labor Relations Act does not confer immunity to unions or workers — the latest ruling from a court that has stiffened the boundaries for labor activities in the last few years:The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that federal labor law did not protect a union from potential liability for damage that arose during a strike, and that a state court...

Infowars host Alex Jones filed for bankruptcy on Friday, after a series of defamation trials resulted in Jones owing nearly $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, The Washington Post reported. Jones reportedly listed his assets at between $1 million and $10 million and his debts at between $1 billion and $10 billion, according to the Post. A Connecticut jury in October ordered Jones to pay $965 million in compensatory and punitive damages to 15 relatives of the victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The families sued Jones for spreading...

Oceana Grill, a popular seafood restaurant in New Orleans, has achieved a first-of-its-kind victory in its long-running legal battle to receive payouts from insurer Lloyd’s of London for loss of revenues during its COVID-19 shutdown beginning on March 20, 2020. On June 15, a Louisiana state court reversed an earlier decision and ruled in favor of the claim for damages brought by the company owning Oceana Grill, Cajun Conti LLC. Cajun Conti initiated legal action on that same day that the shutdown went into effect in March 2020, seeking damages under its insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London. But the...

Whether intentional or by accident, China released the China virus on the world causing millions of deaths and enormous economic disaster world-wide...and yet China has made no effort to investigate the incident nor has it made any effort to reimburse the world's nations for the economic losses resulting from the virus release.

(StudyFinds.org) – Although studies show COVID-19 is capable of infecting a patient’s kidneys, the virus’s exact impact on the organs has been unclear – until now. A team of German and Dutch scientists report COVID-19 causes direct cellular damage within the kidneys, contributing to tissue scarring. Conducted at the RWTH Uniklinik Aachen in Germany and the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, study authors assessed and compared kidney tissues among COVID-19 ICU patients, other patients in the hospital for a non-COVID-related lung issue, and a group of healthy people. Results show kidney tissue from the COVID-19 patients showed much...

The Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are said to be offering to settle lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of 900 persons who entered the United States illegally during the Trump Administration. ACLU spokesman Bertram Petty asserted that "it is already a matter of law that if a person breaks into your home and you injure him you must pay damages. Our 900 clients have all sustained severe psychological trauma as a result of Trump's policy. First, many incurred thousands of dollars in expenses paying coyotes to smuggle them into...

John Matze, the co-founder and former CEO of free speech platform Parler, is suing the company for wrongful termination and the alleged theft of his 40% ownership of the company. Matze was ousted shortly after Parler’s trouble following the Jan 6 riot at the US Capitol. In the lawsuit filed at the Clark County District Court, in Nevada, Matze is seeking “millions in compensatory damages.” The suit alleges that Parler’s main funder, Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of conservative billionaire Robert Mercer, and other board members, engaged in a scheme to steal his ownership in the company he founded. We obtained...

Dive Brief: Skanska USA Civil Southeast has turned to the federal courts in an attempt to eliminate or significantly reduce its liability for damages caused by barges that broke loose from the $430 million Pensacola Bay Bridge construction project during Hurricane Sally in August by having its barges recognized as vessels protected under maritime law. In five separate filings each covering a different barge, Skanska asked the U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Florida, to declare that it is not liable "for any loss, injuries or damages" related to barge damage, including economic losses suffered by businesses from the closure of...

TALLAHASSSEE, Fla. (News Service of Florida) - Bondholders have gone to a state appeals court as they seek to force the Florida Department of Transportation to pay damages because of lost toll revenues on a long-controversial Panhandle bridge. UMB Bank, which represents bondholders, filed a notice last week that it was taking the dispute to the 1st District Court of Appeal after a Leon County circuit judge ruled in November that the department could not be forced to pay damages. As is common, the notice of appeal does not provide detailed legal arguments. But the appeal is the latest move...

The staggering statistics keep piling up for California’s wildfire season: August and September account for five of the six biggest fires in nearly 90 years of recorded history for the state. The destructive Creek Fire that continues to burn in Fresno County grew about 3,000 acres between Monday and Tuesday for a new total of 283,724 acres, leapfrogging the 2017 Thomas Fire for the No. 6 spot, according to Cal Fire records. It is 30% contained. Ahead of the Creek Fire, which started Sept. 4, are four massive wildfire complexes that sparked during a freak mid-August thunderstorm. The storm pummeled...

‘We apologise unreservedly to the first lady and her family for any embarrassment caused by our publication of these allegations. As a mark of our regret we have agreed to pay Mrs. Trump substantial damages as well as her legal costs.’ < snip > The amount of the damages was not specified in this case, but Melania Trump was previously awarded almost $3 million in a lawsuit brought against the Daily Mail for false and defamatory statements about her. “Mrs. Trump often refers to opportunists out to advance themselves by disparaging her name and image,” Trump’s communications director said in...

After using her parents’ credit card to rent a house in which to throw a wild party, a Canadian 14-year-old is in major trouble — $20,000 worth, actually. That’s the amount of damage the teens caused, and which her parents must now pay. Last week, police responded to a call that reported an “uncontrolled party” at a neighborhood home in West Vancouver, where nearly 200 teens were seen “flooding out” once officials arrived, according to CTV News. Left in their wake was a house with much destruction — to walls, furniture, and artwork, all of which her parents will be...

Puerto Rico's iconic Arecibo Observatory has sustained some significant damage from Hurricane Maria, officials reported today (Sept. 22). The storm hit the island as a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday (Sept. 20) and left widespread destruction in its wake. Without power, phones or internet service, the Arecibo Observatory has been offline since the storm hit. The Arecibo Observatory houses the world's second-largest radio telescope. While the overall structure of the telescope is still standing, it sustained some pretty serious damage from Hurricane Maria, according to an update from the Universities Space Research Organization (USRA), which helps to operate the Arecibo Observatory. One telescope operator at Arecibo managed...