Nicholas Sandmann, the MAGA hat wearing Covington student who was erroneously targeted for “intimidating” Nathan Phillips, has filed a lawsuit against the Washington Post for $250 million for “compensatory and punitive damages”, according to Fox News.
President Trump cheered on Nick’s lawsuit via Twitter this morning:
“The Washington Post ignored basic journalistic standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump.” Covington student suing WAPO. Go get them Nick. Fake News!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2019
A Washington Post spokesperson told Fox News that they plan to “mount a vigourous defense” once they review the suit.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, paid $250 million in cash for the newspaper back in 2013. It’s unclear what the newspaper is currently worth. Bezos personal net worth is over $100 billion.
According to Law & Crime, a website devoted to in-depth legal analysis, the lawsuit is broken into two parts: $50 million for compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages. However, Law & Crime suggests there may be a problem with the lawsuit:
The punitive damages, however, may be a problem due to a requirement under Kentucky law to give sufficient notice in libel cases. The statute, KRS 411.051, says that in order to collect punitive damages, a plaintiff has to show that the defendant “failed to make conspicuous and timely publication of a correction after receiving a sufficient demand for correction.” The law specifies that a “timely” correction has to be within 10 business days after receiving a demand for one.
Sandmann’s complaint, which was filed and dated Feb. 19, 2019, says that his counsel send a demand for a retraction on Feb. 14. That’s just five days before they filed the lawsuit, which appears to be an insufficient amount of time.
It’s unclear at this point how it will all unfold, but we will update you once the Washington Post responds to the lawsuit.
