Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
As Alex Jones prepares to deal with the shutdown of several of his social media pages (including four Facebook pages and his Infowars YouTube channel), he also has to contend with multiple defamation lawsuits that have been filed against him, at least one of which will soon be moving forward.
Judge Scott Jenkins of the District Court for the 53rd District in Austin, Texas, denied Jones’s motion to dismiss the case. Jones claimed his hateful speech was protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but Judge Jenkins disagreed. Defamation is not protected under the First Amendment, and if the plaintiffs can prove their claims of financial damages as a result of Jones’s defamatory statements, then they’ll have a solid case for defamation.
In his request to have the lawsuit dismissed, Jones included a request that the families suing him pay him $100,000 for the legal fees he has incurred in defending himself against their lawsuit.
While defendants are often made to pay legal fees if a court rules against them, it’s almost unheard of for a court to require a plaintiff to pay for a defendant’s legal fees. As the situation currently stands for Jones, not only will he not get that $100,000, but he might have to pay more than $1 million in damages to Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of six-year-old Noah, who was one of the children gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Jones has repeatedly called the mass shooting a hoax and accused victims and family members of being actors who are paid by the government and gun control lobbyists to carry out their anti-gun conspiracy. Continue reading ›