Erin Andrews settlement rant

I'm not making any judgements on the settlement amount, but the quality of the video isn't relevant.

 

First of all, it has to be said that what happened to her was clearly wrong and there's no excuse for that type of behavior. Nobody deserves to go through that.

That being said, reading through all the comments in this thread, nobody has thought to ask the following question, so I'll ask it: If a regular person had gone through the same exact thing Erin Andrews went through, would they have gotten 55 million dollars?

 

Probably, if their employer forced them to prove it wasn't a publicity stunt by going on national television to relive the whole thing. I'm sure ESPN/Disney's response had a significant effect on the decision, which should be held accountable for its own actions.

 

Disturbing thread

 

$28 million is supposed to be paid by the perp. He'll pay nothing or next to nothing so it's meaningless.
The $27m attributed to the hotel will probably get cut in half so we are at $13.5 million.
40% go the attorneys so we are at $8.1 million.
She owes special court costs - it could be as much as $1 million but let's say $500k.
40% of the remainder goes to fed and state taxes (at least).
She'll end up with <$4.56 million. Not the headline number originally quoted.

 

That old woman got $3 million dollars from McDonald's for spilling hot coffee in her lap, and she wasn't personally violated in any way whatsoever. So yeah, I think a jury could have come up with the same settlement regardless of who the plaintiff was.

That's exactly what I did.

 

Madison County Illinois is one of the hottest litigation courts in the country. The attorneys literally put advertisements in the paper telling citizens to grant large sums in lawsuits to aid the local economy. Law firms from all over the country have set up offices in the town of Edwardsville where the court house is located just to tap into the cash flowing from the lawsuits. They have a judge who does next to nothing but handle asbestos lawsuits because everyone knows the plaintiff will win. The only question is how much money will be paid.

 

Lawyers, don't get me started... How often do they actually collect more than the plaintiff? Quite often, actually.

A relative of mine hired a lawyer for an injury claim (MVA). He was known as moderately pricey, but his fees were in line with the Bar association, and was willing to dicker a bit on them, so he signed our relative up for a mere 20% plus costs. when the bill came in, we almost died on the spot at some of the costs.

Every call he made or received was additional to the 20% "fee", and
For a phone call while in his car, we also were charged mileage as well as his cell minutes, both at double the then-current govt rates for tax purposes. Three charges per call!
Photocopying was billed at two bucks per sheet in a time when Office Depot's machines were charging a quarter, and everything was always in 3's (plaintiff, court, file)
Every time he wrote some new notes, the cost of a new legal pad was added to the bill.
Staples were a chargeable item, so were paper clips. Pennies each, but in two years of back and forth, there were a lot of staples.

There were more really "off the wall" charges that the family deemed over the top and wouldn't pay. If memory serves, they added up to almost another 15% of the total settlement. The family threatened to sue the lawyer and settled for a lump cost that was less than half of what he originally billed.

When they say the only ones who get rich by going to court are the lawyers, I tend to believe that. Who else can get away with charging for paperclips and staples?

 

J3 - I beg to differ. When the Fappening happened, there was a whole lot of unsuspecting victims pictures and videos on here. Probably still are.

 

we are the moral deviants.

 

You are suggesting the 120 or so juries that awarded judgements in civil cases in Tennessee in 2015 all got it wrong - they awarded too little - while Erin Andrews' jury finally got it right with the amount of money they awarded? No. The tort system is to collect damages to compensate for pain and suffering, lost income, loss of companionship, etc. It is not meant to vault someone into the top 99.9% of wealthiest people in the world simply because he/she was the victim of an unfortunate act. This jury got caught up in a celebrity trial with national attention and they awarded a ridiculous amount of money because of it. Had it been your sister/girlfriend/wife instead of Erin Andrews, that jury would have awarded an amount much more in line with last year's average.

 

This.

 

How can a person put a dollar amount on "emotional distress"?

 

Those were selfies. You have to be pretty foolish to take naked images and videos of yourself and then store them on someone else's server. You're just asking for trouble, as was amply demonstrated.

 

Nobody would know if my wife/sister/girlfriend (all the same person btw) had that shitty of a video, so the tort would be different. And in fact, probably nobody would ever find out that the act even happened. It would become a video with 18 views on porntube, and a post on here that might at best cause someone to complain about all the spam.

 

To the OP and anyone else against her in this case, you're nothing but a sexist pig.

The woman had her privacy violated by a stalker. Period. End of discussion.

What she did on the video or how long she did it for is completely irrelevant. She was in her hotel room by herself with no expectation of being recorded because why would she think anyone was recording it?

It's a total invasion of privacy and the hotel is partially responsible seeing as how it happened in their building and the guy was given information on what room was hers.

Erin is a professional sports reporter who never had any intention of showing her nude body to the world. Period.

2 final things:

1) If it happened to your wife or daughter you'd be damn pissed about it.

2) If some psychotic woman filmed you and your small pecker for 5 minutes and plastered it all over the internet you'd be embarrassed and crying about it as well.

 

I'm assuming it's judged by her public value and net worth. The only reason she was targeted was BECAUSE of her popularity...so if I was her, I would in turn place a large dollar amount on the settlement because of my status. Also, the only reason her video became huge/popular was because of her status in society. You can go on porn websites and find thousands of blurry hidden cam type videos with none of them being given a second look. This video became huge simply because it was a big celebrity name.

Also remember, she's refused to pose for Playboy or do any type of nudes. When a famous person is exposed without their consent, their "value" in that area immediately drops. It's similar to Kate Upton. She made a lot of money showing off her bikini body but refused to do blatant nudity (except for some subtle see-thru shots). After the fappening, I guarantee her stock/price for nudity went down because the public saw every inch of her body. You have to look at celebrities as a commodity. Their value goes up and down based on public perception.

People usually start off with a very high dollar amount knowing it will get lowered later and the lawyer's will need to be paid. I guarantee her payout will be nothing close to the amount.

 

Actually her professional life was ruined. She now works for Fox Sports, THE WORST sports network on this planet. You can't believe anything they say as they are required by contract to never deviate from their script. Meaning, if they tell the truth they will be fired. How do I know this? Their owner admitted it and seems to be very proud of it.

 

But she's making more $$