Law Commons^™

Eat Your Vitamins And Say Your Prayers: Bollea V. Gawker, Revenge Litigation Funding, And The Fate Of The Fourth Estate, Nicole K. Chipi

University of Miami Law Review

In August 2016, Gawker.com shut down after 14 years of—more often than not—controversial online publishing. The website was one of several Gawker Media properties crushed under the weight of a $140 million jury verdict awarded to Terry Bollea (better known as former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan), in a lawsuit financed by eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel’s clandestine legal campaign was part of a vendetta against Gawker Media, a venture he confirms was singularly focused on bankrupting the company through litigation. His success sent shudders through the media world, demonstrating that determined actors with deep pockets could sue the …

The Weaponized Lawsuit Against The Media: Litigation Funding As A New Threat To Journalism, Lili Levi

Articles

This Article identifies a new front in the current war against the media one in which billionaire private actors clandestinely fund other people's lawsuits in an attempt to censor press entities. The use of strategic litigation to shutter media outlets constitutes a major threat to the expressive order. And the current climate of press failures, institutional disaggregation, decreasing accountability journalism, and declining public trust-the very vulnerability of the press today-significantly amplifies the chilling impact of strategic third party funding. It does so whether the strategy is death-by-a-thousand litigations or titanic, bankruptcy-inducing damage verdicts.

Still, contrary to the assertions of both …