- So it looks like Alex Jones is going to have to pay a huge amount of money to the parents of the children that were killed in the
Sandy Hook Massacre. And this isn't a case that it wasn't at all clear that Alex Jones was going to lose. So how did he snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Well, you have to hand it to him, he just achieved something that's so rare in Texas legal circles, that one lawyer called it a unicorn in the law. One lawyer said, "None of the lawyers I've spoken with "have ever had this happen, "but we've never seen such a blatant "disregard for the court's authority "the way we have here." So what did Jones do in this lawsuit? Well, first of all, there's four lawsuits that were filed by family members of three children killed in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. And despite the verifiable fact that six adults and 20 children were murdered by a lone gunman, Jones has repeatedly accused Sandy Hook families of being crisis actors, calling the events at giant hoax and a false flag operation. And several families of victims have already sued Jones for defamation and won. In 2019, a court ordered Jones to pay court costs and legal fees to parents of Sandy Hook victims. And in the current lawsuits, Jones has steadfastly refused to turn over relevant evidence to the plaintiffs. Despite court orders that were meant to expedite discovery, Jones has declined to provide documents and evidence. But here's the thing about court orders, you really don't have the right to decline them. Even if you think the court is wrong. Hey, Legal Eagles. It's time to think like a litigator because after three years of stonewalling, a Texas judge has finally seen enough. So rather than allowing the case to go to trial, the judge ruled that Jones' flagrant bad faith and callous disregard
of the court's orders has resulted in default judgments. That means that the judge decided that Jones and Infowars
have legal liability. The three cases will now proceed to trial solely on one issue, how much money Jones and Infowars have to pay for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. So just how did Alex Jones lose four lawsuits without proceeding to trial? Well, let's count the ways. And to understand why the judge issued default judgments, we need to know the
basics of these lawsuits. In 2018, the families of three children filed lawsuits in Travis County, Texas where Jones and his Infowars
media system is based. The plaintiffs in these cases contend that Jones' false claims motivated people to harass
and intimidate them. For example, Leonard Pozner
and Veronique De La Rosa are the parents of
six-year-old Noah Pozner. One of Jones' viewers, Lucy Richards, left voicemails threatening to kill Leonard Pozner for his alleged role in the alleged hoax. After Pozner convinced YouTube to remove one of the Jones' videos, Jones then published Pozner's home address and showed viewers information about Pozner's family members. The Pozner family has moved seven times to avoid harassment from Jones' viewers. The Pozner-De La Rosa lawsuit quoted Jones is saying that the school shooting was, quote, "A false flag, "meant to give the
government an opportunity "to limit second amendment rights." And Jones constantly tells his viewers and listeners that the parents of the slain children did not have murdered children. Quote, "They clearly used actors. "I mean, they even ended up using "photos of kids killed in mass shootings "here in a fake mass shooting "in Turkey or Pakistan," end quote. Naturally, the parents of children killed in Sandy Hook took objection to these claims. Neil Heslin is the father of six-year-old Jesse Lewis. After Joan said Heslin lied about holding his dead son in his arms, Heslin filed two defamation lawsuits. Jessie's mother, Scarlett, also filed a lawsuit against Jones for saying the school shooting was, quote, "As phony as a $3 bill." Lewis cited numerous statements where Jones and his contributors implied that the Sandy Hook parents were not genuinely grieving for their dead children. By any measure, this is gruesomely offensive stuff. But is it enough to
lose a defamation case? Well, before we go
deeper into these cases, you should understand some basic facts about what we call the discovery process. So let's say that you want to file a civil lawsuit against someone. You race down to the courthouse, fill out the paperwork. What happens next is not trial. Before you get your day in court, all parties get an opportunity to get evidence from each other. This is called discovery and there are several tools that lawyers use in discovery to gather evidence. And some information
disclosures are mandatory, which prevents the other side from hiding relevant evidence. In Texas, these required
disclosures are covered by the Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 194. And they include information like the name and
address of all witnesses, a list or copy of all relevant documents, and a description of the legal theories and defenses each party may use. Lawyers may also make requests for a production, which each side must answer by producing documents and things relevant to the case. And these requests must specify a reasonable time and date for production. Litigants can also ask parties to answer written questions called interrogatories. And if you've ever wondered what lawyers are actually doing all day, this is probably it. We spend a lot of time crafting these discovery requests and responding to them, objecting to them, and reviewing answers to them. Lawyers spend more time on these activities than they do inside the courtroom. And there also be things like depositions where witnesses must give testimony under oath. And throughout this process, all parties negotiate for
limitations on discovery, and they try and force the other side to answer the requests as written. There's back and forth between the parties and the court. But eventually, you're going to have to answer some of this discovery. Simply asserting that answering discovery requests in general is hard work and cumbersome is generally not enough to get out of doing those
discovery responses. And all of this takes place long before the parties ever get to trial, where you'll have an adjudication of the case on the merits. In this case, the litigants in the defamation case all made written discovery requests in 2018 and 2019. However, in response, Jones and his collaborators filed motions under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, known as the TCPA, to have the lawsuits dismissed. The TCPA is Texas' version of an anti-SLAPP statute, which is meant to be
constitutional safeguard protecting the rights
of persons to petition to speak freely, associate freely, and otherwise participate in government to the maximum extent permitted by law. And at the same time, protects the rights of persons to file meritorious lawsuits for demonstrable injury. SLAPPs are shorthand for Strategic Lawsuits
Against Public Participation. Generally, lawsuits trying
to stifle free speech. And anti-SLAPP laws are generally a good thing for freedom of speech. They are intended to prevent people from using courts to intimidate people who are simply exercising their free speech rights. Media groups and individual journalists can use an anti-SLAPP statute to protect themselves from baseless legal threats. And interestingly, while
former President Trump has been known to file a meritless lawsuit or two and had anti-SLAPP laws used against him, former President Trump also used an anti-SLAPP law in his favor to get attorney's fees
back from Stormy Daniels when the court ruled that the Stormy Daniels lawsuit was meritless and infringed on former President Trump's right to free speech. In this case, the Texas anti-SLAPP law, the TCPA, was initially criticized for being so broad that it allowed defendants to dismiss too many types of cases, including attorney discipline proceedings and employment law matters, where the issue wasn't
really about free speech. But in 2019, the Texas legislature narrowed the scope of the law, hoping to confine it to cases involving the First Amendment. And the TCPA now provides
litigants like Jones with an early opportunity to move to dismiss a lawsuit that infringes on his
First Amendment rights. And if successful, that person can then receive an award of attorney's fees. So Jones and Infowars had a right to file a TCPA motion and they did so for all four of the cases. The trial judge stayed the proceedings while Jones fought for his First Amendment rights. And so far, there's nothing improper about any of that. Jones has as many First Amendment rights as anyone else. And we might not like what he has to say, but that's why the First Amendment exists. To protect people and their right to say what they want to say. But Jones has always maintained that he had a First Amendment right to report about the Sandy Hook Massacre. But his own statements given under oath have undermined his defense to defamation. Jones first got himself into hot water during his deposition in one of the other Sandy Hook cases. During that deposition, lawyers played damning clips of Jones on his TV show where he was mocking parents, pretending to cry, . parents. - And then you've got parents laughing, going, "Hahaha," and then they walk over
to the camera and go... (intense crying) - In response to the clips, Jones admitted under oath that his statements were false. Jones said the media traumatized him because they were all such great big liars. And the big old media, therefore, caused Jones
to suffer from a psychosis where he simply made things up about these families and their children. As you can imagine, these kinds of admissions hurt Jones in all the defamation cases filed by the Sandy Hook families and made it easier for them to prove intentional infliction of emotional distress. Jones argued that he had a right to ask questions and that he relied on evidence he found online through news reports. Quote, "They staged Sandy Hook. "The evidence is just overwhelming, "and that's why I'm so desperate "and freaked out," said Jones in 2013. And his argument was that, as a news organization, he and his staff had the right to ask questions, speculate and rely on what others were reporting in formulating their own opinions in addition to doing their own reporting. And members of the media are generally allowed to do just that. Of course, a lot of these claims were undermined by some damning deposition testimony. And during the litigation
of these motions, Jones admitted that all of the factual allegations in the plaintiff's pleadings were true, which isn't really unusual. In a defamation case, often you know what statements are being made by both parties. So it's not unusual for a defendant to necessarily agree with the factual allegations of the plaintiff's pleadings. It's just that they disagreed that they rise to the level of a defamatory statement. And not surprisingly, Jones argued that all of his statements were constitutionally protected expressions of opinion, rather than statements of fact. And under Texas law, courts must consider the following factors in determining whether a statement is one of opinion or fact. One, the statement must
be provable as false, at least where public official or public figure plaintiffs are involved. Two, the constitutional protection is afforded to statements that cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts in order to assure that the public debate will not suffer for lack of imaginative expression or rhetorical hyperbole. Or three, where the standard of opinion on a matter of public concern reasonably implies false and defamatory facts regarding public figures or officials. Those individuals must show that such statements were made with knowledge of their false implications or with reckless disregard for the truth. And four, the statements must be given, quote, "enhanced appellate review" to ensure that these determinations are made in a manner that does not constitute a forbidden intrusion into free speech. Now, a Texas appeals court concluded that statements by Jones and his contributors cross the line from hyperbole into reckless and defamatory. And once these defenses were litigated, the courts determined that the fair reporting privilege didn't prevent the plaintiffs from suing Jones and Infowars. So that meant that the civil suits could go forward and Alex Jones needed to respond to the discovery requests. And in July of 2021, the plaintiff's lawyers offered to give Jones and other defendants 14 more days to answer discovery. And they even agreed to waive all objections to the lateness of the discovery responses as long as Jones answered within 14 days. But the Jones legal team merely asked for a copy of the discovery requests, which they were three
years old at that point. And then they failed to make any responses whatsoever. That prompted Pozner's lawyers to file a motion to compel discovery and for sanctions. In the Heslin case, the court ordered Jones to sit for deposition and to respond to discovery. And that was in October of 2019. Jones didn't comply. So in December, the court assessed sanctions and held Jones in contempt. And that was back at the time that Jones had filed his own motion to dismiss under the TCPA and the court stayed all
the legal proceedings while Jones appealed that TCPA motion. And Jones promised to supplement his discovery answers as soon as the stay was lifted, if the court didn't dismiss the case. However, when the Court of Appeals did not dismiss the case, he didn't do so. In fact, the Jones defendants failed to supplement any discovery after the stay was lifted. And a similar pattern happened in the Lewis case where the court ordered Jones to respond to discovery way back in February of 2019. Jones was supposed to have a deposition in March of 2019, but instead, nothing happened and the proceedings ground to a halt. When the judge assessed sanctions in the Lewis case, Jones offered up some documents, but each time that happened, the documents were not responsive to the discovery requests. So what happens when you're a plaintiff's attorney and the defense just simply refuses to respond to your discovery requests? Well, under the Texas
Rules of Civil Procedure, a litigant may apply for sanctions or an order compelling discovery when a litigant refuses to agree to respond to discovery or refuses to provide answers. And motions to compel discovery and for sanctions are not rare at all. Usually, if they're granted, they result in the court actually compelling the party to turn over discovery, or barring the party resisting discovery from asserting a certain defense, or fining the party and maybe getting some attorney's fees for having to go through the fight. This happens all the time because people don't like giving up information to the other side. But in this case, the court was so exasperated by Alex Jones' willful conduct, the judge decided to enter a default judgment instead. Now, a default judgment is a binding judgment in favor of the other party based on some failure to take action by that party. If this occurs, a court might rule in favor of the plaintiff by default. Now, it's pretty common for judges to enter default judgment in cases where a defendant, despite being properly served, simply never enters an appearance or answers the plaintiff's complaint. That's why, if you're
sued with the lawsuit, you need to talk to a lawyer because if you don't respond, you're going to get a default judgment. However, here the judge entered the default judgment because the court believed that less serious sanctions would not deter Alex Jones from similar actions in the future. Quote, "The court rejects lesser sanctions "because they've proven ineffective "when previously ordered. "They would also benefit defendants "and increase the cost to plaintiff." The court held that Jones had shown a consistent pattern of discovery abuse, not only on the three related cases, but in their other litigation pertaining to Sandy Hook in general. The court also noted that Jones had failed to answer discovery in defamation case involving Alex Jones' statements about a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School in Florida. And of course, Alex Jones had a right to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuits. And he had every right to try to use the TCPA. It wasn't a crazy argument to think that the anti-SLAPP laws might apply and give him a defense. But having lost that fight, he had a legal responsibility to obey the orders of the court and participate in the discovery process. And the lesson to never piss off the judge is always a good one. The Texas Court concluded that given defendant's bad
faith approach to litigation, Mr. Jones' public threats and Mr. Jones' professed belief that the proceedings are show trials, that entering a series of escalating consequences would be useless. So the court entered a default judgment against Alex Jones. The court opted not to issue sanctions against his lawyers. Noting the Jones had seven lawyers during the course of this litigation. That basically Alex Jones
did whatever he wanted, regardless of who was representing him. So congratulations, Alex Jones. You played yourself. And that's not all. Now, Alex Jones has lost all 10 lawsuits brought by families of people killed in the Sandy Hook massacre. In November, a Connecticut State Court ruled that because Jones disregarded orders requiring him to turn over documents, he's liable by default. The Connecticut judge used the same logic as the Texas Court. The lead plaintiff in
the Connecticut cases, Erica Lafferty, the daughter of the school principal, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, who was murdered by the same gunman as the Sandy Hook children. The other plaintiffs include William Aldenberg, a first responder who Jones has labeled a crisis actor. And when there's a default judgment, that doesn't mean the case is over. There still has to be a trial on the matter of damages. This is generally called a prove up where the winner of the trial has to demonstrate the actual damages that they suffered. Though, liability is no
longer contested because, you know, that was the penalty. So now, both state courts will now schedule a trial on how much Jones has to pay. Jones has already vowed to appeal the Connecticut rulings. And he also claimed that the state courts were
conspiring against him to deny him due process. Quote, "These individuals again "you're not allowing me "to have a jury trial "because they know the things they said "I supposedly did didn't happen, "and they know they didn't have "a case for damages." So the lesson is, if you get sued, you should actually participate in the legal process and not obstruct like Alex Jones. And if you do get sued, call your lawyer immediately. And when you make that call, you can save a ton of money on your cell phone bill with today's sponsor, Ting Mobile. In fact, I personally switched to Ting Mobile and save literally hundreds of dollars a month. I'm not kidding, why? Well, because of this. Yes, this is a real cell phone bill that I got with my previous provider. And it's why I personally
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