Unappealed sex offender tier determination binds later petitions

Summary: Texas court cuts punitive damages from $45.2 million to $1.5 million Judgment against Alex Jones reduced from $50 million to $5.5 million Jones remains liable for $1.4 billion in Connecticut related judgments Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones won an appeal in one family's defamation lawsuit over his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting was a hoax, reducing the judgment against him from $50 million to about $5.5 million. Jones, who filed for bankruptcy after being sued by parents of children slain in the shooting, must still pay $1.4 billion in related judgments from a Connecticut court. In the Texas case, a jury awarded over $50 million to plaintiffs Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. Heslin and Lewis said they suffered years of harassment and abuse at the hands of Jones' followers, who falsely believed they lied about their 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis' death. Texas law typically caps punitive damages, which made up $45.2 million of the verdict, at $750,000 per plaintiff. A three-judge panel of the Texas Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court erred by exceeding the cap, and it ordered the punitive damages reduced to $1.5 million. The trial court had allowed Heslin and Lewis' lawyers to amend their claims after they won a judgment on Jones' liability but before the ruling on damages. The change allowed the parents to successfully argue that the trauma over their son's death counted as a disability that would exempt them from the punitive damages cap. The appeals court ruled on Aug. 21 that the parents should not have been allowed to amend their claims to include the disability argument, because that argument required factual findings that the jury did not make in the case. Jones' attorney Andino Reynal said he was not surprised by the ruling and that Texas law on punitive damages is very clear. "Punitive damages are capped at $750,000 per person," Reynal said. "That was the law then and it remains the law now." Attorneys for Heslin and Lewis did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Jones claimed for years that the 2012 killing of 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged with actors as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns. He has since acknowledged the shooting occurred. Jones has also tried to challenge the punitive damages in the Connecticut case, but the state's court upheld most of those damages, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take Jones' appeal. Some of Jones' assets were liquidated during his personal bankruptcy, but a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled that Jones remains liable for most of the defamation verdicts. The parody news site the Onion has sought to acquire some of Jones' intellectual property in bankruptcy, and it began posting parody Infowars-branded videos in July after an earlier failed attempt to acquire the Infowars name in a disputed bankruptcy sale. (Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; editing by Blake Brittain and Lisa Shumaker)

Summary: Teen plaintiff dropped claims against Meta, Google, Snap Lawsuit was a bellwether case in California state court Meta defends ongoing federal and Tennessee state trials A teen whose lawsuit was a test case in litigation accusing social media companies of deliberately addicting young people and fueling a mental health crisis dropped her claims against the owners of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat on Aug. 20, according to a court filing. The plaintiff, a 15-year-old girl from New Jersey identified in California court records as P. M-Y., had alleged the platforms' owners — Meta Platforms, Google and Snap Inc. — contributed to her social media addiction, depression and self-harm. The companies said she dropped her claims without any payment. TikTok, which was also a defendant in her case, had previously settled her claims. Emily Jeffcott, an attorney for P.M-Y., said in a statement her client chose to dismiss the remainder of her claims out of a desire to resume her life. She "initiated this process with the goal of holding social media companies accountable and to push for changes to protect young people like herself," Jeffcott said. Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, is defending itself at two trials over claims from states that it designed its platforms to be addictive to children and misled the public about their safety. One trial, which began the week of Aug. 17 and deals with the claims of 29 states, is proceeding in federal court in Oakland, California, while another, over claims brought by Tennessee, is ongoing in state court in Nashville. The lawsuits are among thousands brought by individuals, states and school districts against social media companies over claims their platforms harm children. The companies have denied the allegations and say they take extensive steps to keep teens and young users safe on their platforms. P. M-Y.'s lawsuit was among more than 3,300 personal injury cases brought by individuals that were consolidated in California state court in Los Angeles. It was selected as one of three "bellwether" cases scheduled to go to trial in October. “This plaintiff had a significant mental health condition that pre-dated her use of social media, and it's clear that many of these cases fit the same pattern,” Meta said in a statement, adding that it would vigorously defend against the remaining cases. In a statement, Google-owned YouTube said the decision to drop the case affirms “our longstanding position that we provide safe, age-appropriate experiences and strong parental controls for young people and families.” A Snap spokesperson said in a statement the company remains focused on strengthening safeguards, tools and educational resources to support users' safety, privacy and well-being. Two other cases brought by teens making similar claims against the same companies are scheduled for trial in October, according to court records. TikTok has already settled those cases. Another bellwether case ended before trial in July, when a teenage plaintiff dropped his claims against Meta after the other defendants settled. The first individual trial ​in the litigation, which ended in March, resulted in verdicts amounting to $4.2 million against ​Meta and $1.8 million against Google in a case brought by a woman who said she became addicted to social media platforms at a young age because of their attention-grabbing design. TikTok and Snap settled that ⁠case before ​trial.  (Reporting by Diana Novak Jones, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Cynthia Osterman)

Summary: Harvard agrees to $53 million settlement Massachusetts superior court preliminarily approves class action Cedric Lodge sentenced to eight years federal prison   Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to resolve lawsuits by families alleging it mishandled the bodies of loved ones donated to its medical school and whose parts were then sold on the black market by the former manager of its morgue. A Suffolk Superior Court judge on Aug. 18 preliminarily approved a class action settlement that would resolve lawsuits filed against the institution following the arrest in 2023 of Cedric Lodge, the former manager of Harvard Medical School’s morgue. Lodge, who had worked in Harvard’s morgue for almost three decades, was sentenced by a federal judge in December to eight years in prison for stealing and selling organs and other parts of cadavers that were donated to the school for medical research and education. Prosecutors said that since 2018 he had been stealing parts from cadavers, including heads, faces, brains, skin and hands, and transporting them from Harvard’s morgue in Boston to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them. Dozens of relatives of individuals whose bodies were donated to Harvard filed lawsuits accusing the school of negligence, contending it turned a blind eye to Lodge’s years-long misconduct until he was indicted in 2023. A judge initially dismissed the cases, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in October revived them, saying the plaintiffs had sufficient claims that Harvard failed to act in good faith in handling the bodies, whose “horrific and undignified treatment continued for years.” George Daley, Harvard’s dean of the faculty of medicine, and Bernard Chang, dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School, said in a message to the school’s community dated Aug. 17 that Lodge’s conduct was “despicable, abhorrent, and a flagrant betrayal of our values as a medical community.” They said the settlement, in addition to monetary provisions, included Harvard Medical School’s pledge to provide a statement to the families via live webinar “confirming that Lodge’s criminal acts were morally reprehensible.” Beginning in the 2027-2028 academic year, Harvard Medical School will also establish an annual scholarship for medical students in honor of all of its anatomical donors, the school said. “We hope that this resolution ensures that this never happens to another family ever again,” John Morgan, whose law firm Morgan & Morgan represented families in the litigation, said in a statement. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Edmund Klamann)