Jury Awards $45.2M To Parents Of Sandy Hook Victim

Jury Awards $45.2M To Parents Of Sandy Hook Victim

Introduction

A Texas jury ruled on Friday that a U.S. conspiracy theorist must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012 $45.2 million in punitive damages in addition to the $4.1 million in compensatory damages already given for falsely claiming the killing was a fabrication.

Separated parents of the 6-year-old boy who was shot and killed testified that followers of the conspiracy theorist had harassed them and sent them death threats for years under the false impression that they were lying about their son's death in the shooting that took place on December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children and six staff members.

The defamation case was heard in state court in Austin, the capital of Texas, where the theorist's radio show and the far-right webcast Infowars are based. The 12 jurors reached their verdict on the punitive damages one day after reaching their verdict on the compensatory damages.

The lawsuit's defendant is a well-known figure in American right-wing circles and a fan of the former president. He claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax perpetrated by the US government using crisis actors as a justification for taking away Americans' right to bear arms.

Both punitive and compensatory damages totaling $145.9 million were claimed by the parents. A plaintiff receives compensatory damages to make up for their losses and suffering. Punitive damages are given as compensation for the defendant's wrongdoing.

Based on the number of hours Infowars spent covering Sandy Hook, a defense lawyer has asked the jury to award $270,000 in punitive damages. Although the verdict was hefty, the lawyer outside the courthouse explained that punitive damages in Texas are limited to $750,000 per plaintiff. Knowing that there is a cap on punitive damages, he even works to reduce compensatory damages during the trial.

Punitive damages were calculated as $20.5 million for each parent for mental agony and $4.2 million for the defendant's defamation of the deceased boy's father by doubting that he held his dead kid after the killing.

During his evidence in the trial, the defendant made an effort to disassociate himself from the conspiracies by expressing regret to the parents and stating that Sandy Hook was "100% true.

The massacre at Sandy Hook was carried out with a Remington Bushmaster rifle, and it was terminated by the shooter's suicide as oncoming police sirens could be heard.