Men behaving badly get $140 million?

The case of Hulk Hogan v. Gawker has raised important First Amendment issues, which just goes to show that nothing is so ridiculous that it can’t raise a serious concern.

As the old legal adage reminds us, hard cases make bad law. A less-well-known adage is also true: Hard cases make good billable hours for attorneys. They had plenty to work with here.

We do not know all the facts, but what we know is absurd: The professional wrestler known as Hulk Hogan, real name Terry G. Bollea, was recorded on video in 2006 having sex with the wife of his friend, Florida shock-radio personality Todd A. Clem, who had changed his legal name to Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Gawker, the online media company, which made its reputation by trading in scandal and gossip, somehow got hold of the tape in 2012 and decided it was news that its audience just had to see.

This hurt Hogan’s feelings. Because this is America, where the only salve for hurt feelings is bucketloads of money, he sued and members of a jury in Florida dutifully obliged him on Friday.

They awarded him compensatory damages of $115 million — more than the $100 million he sought, perhaps because enough is never enough when it comes to hurt feelings. Of this, $55 million was for economic harm and $60 million for emotional distress. On Monday, they tacked on $25 million in punitive damages. (Gawker is planning to appeal, of course.)

The first thing that struck me is that Bubba the Love Sponge Clem is an outstanding name. This case may turn out to be a disaster for the First Amendment, but journalists writing about it had the rare joy of writing Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, despite this gentleman never appearing as a witness.

Just to write those magic words — and let me be formal, Mr. Bubba the Love Sponge Clem — is an opportunity that comes along only rarely in a journalist’s lifetime. A single mention is enough to banish all career worries — the tedium of council meetings, the lack of pay raises, the threat of layoffs, the abuse at Trump rallies.

Indeed, I realize too late that I should have had a better byline. Is it too late to be known as Reg the Papa Romeo? Remind me to speak to my editor about that. I bet lots more readers would be attracted to this column for the chance to read all the news likely to be indecent.

Another thing that strikes me as extraordinary about this case is the size of the jury’s award. Really? $60 million for emotional distress?

I don’t doubt that professional wrestlers are sensitive souls, but I am not sure my own emotions could ever be sufficiently distressed to justify an award of $60 million. Maybe $600.25 if someone cast me in a very shameful light.

Admittedly, I am a hardened, old-school scribe whose emotions have grown calluses over them. However, I would have sobbed as Hogan did when he heard the verdict. Of course, my sobs would have been for joy and I would have said, “I am rich! I am rich!” between each sob.

That raises another consideration. The best way not to be humiliated by a video of yourself having sex with a friend’s wife is not to have sex with a friend’s wife (even if your friend encouraged you to and taped it, as was the case here), or anybody else’s wife for that matter.

Call me old-fashioned, but this verdict amounts to a reward for doing what used to be considered the wrong thing. The general feeling then was that you took your chances when you had sex with someone else’s wife, and humiliation and emotional distress weren’t the worst consequences — shotgun pellets in your retreating butt were also a possibility.

But now a jury in Florida has given a monetary incentive for men to behave badly — because men, of a gender needing no excuse to misbehave, will think they can get lucky and get videotaped. No wife is safe now. Husbands should check the driveway to see if men with cheesy grins are paying a social call.

Any more jury awards like this and America will resemble France in its moral attitudes, without the consolation of better cuisine. Of course I feel little sympathy for sleazy online outfits such as Gawker. I am for reading the paper, not for gawking.

But hard cases make bad law and precedent, and the happy chance to write Bubba the Love Sponge Clem is no consolation for common sense being turned on its head.

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Reg Henry
(TNS)/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Reg Henry is deputy editorial-page editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.