Regardless of the damages paid (if any, Sullivan ruling, anyone?) The standard of having a confidentiality agreement to keep the proceedings out of the public eye should be done away with, permanently.
It won’t happen, lawyers will never allow themselves to be held to some sort of ethical standard.
The 250 mil is just a standard technique to settle for a much lower amount, to be protected from the public eye by a confidentiality agreement.
How did the law and the practice of it get so royally screwed up?
How did the law and the practice of it get so royally screwed up?
Lawyers
“Regardless of the damages paid (if any, Sullivan ruling, anyone?)”
Sullivan should not apply here. The boy was not a public figure at the time he was attacked.
Can a minor actually be a “public figure under Sullivan? I agree with Sandmann’s lawyer that that’s impossible. (IANAL).I took the trouble to peruse Sullivan, and although it’s a unanimous decision and unlikely to be reversed on that account, IMHO it is in sore need of being “adjusted” radically. At the time Sullivan was handed down, complaints about “bias in the media” was not a thing (give or take a complaint about “the referees” by Goldwater after the election that year).
Mr. Sullivan himself was a Southern Democrat, and on that account in bad odor in Washington and a perfect target for the Warren Court. There was no hint of the fact that since then, it has become obvious that Democrats don’t get libeled. And Republicans routinely do. So in actual fact Sullivan heavily favors the Democrats.
As we all know, “the media” is actually singular - there’s not a dime’s worth of difference among the major journalism outlets.