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baldeagle wrote:I always shake my head when people on the forum want to argue legal matters with Charles.

If I have a less than complete understand I could just take someone's word that I'm wrong and end up with no better understanding than before or I can ask questions to elicit a discussion and hopefully improve my understanding. But that makes you shake your head?

Charles L. Cotton wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "in Fed court you don't have to have an exact amount to receive compensation." However, you must establish liability before you can recover anything and with unjust enrichment cases in this context, that means you must show that the allegedly defamatory statement resulted in the sale of more books.

Chas.

If there is a email from the publisher talking about how great the publicity over the controversy is then that would show that at least the publisher valued the false story as a source of pr? Now how you attach a monetary amount to that I wouldn't have a clue but it would seem to be unfair to allow someone to keep that unearned value in its entirety just because valuing it is difficult. While I have never been involved in the publishing industry they must have some way in which they a sign values to things. The same with PR companies. Then there could be testimony from some of the shows bookers on the effect of the controversy, which I don't have the slightest ides if it happened or not but it doesn't sound crazy to me. Of course I have seen zero evidence and wouldn't be surprised at all if the judge threw out the award either so right now it's just a theoretical discussion and nothing more.

I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything I was just interested in the legal sausage grinder that is our court system.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

EEllis wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:




Local bias is rarely quantifiable which is why federal law allows state court claims to be filed in (or removed to) federal court under a "Diversity" claim. (That is diversity of state residency.) An entire body of federal law is based upon the reality of local bias. I see it on an intrastate level every time I try a case in a small county and one party or the other is not a resident of that county.

Apparently I misunderstood your numbers argument. You were talking about the amount of money going to the widow v. the money going to Ventura. I thought you were trying to counter my argument that it's impossible to provide accurate evidence about how much more the book allegedly sold because of the inclusion of the Ventura argument, as opposed to what sales would have been without including that incident. Your point is the widow isn't "poor;" my point is that the jury verdict on unjust enrichment is utterly without factual basis. (BTW, I never referred to Chris' widow being poor, only that Ventura went after the widow of a war hero and that's PR suicide.)

Chas.

All I would have to say is that we don't know what the argument is so it's a bit much for me to say that the plaintiffs argumentis without merit or without factual basis.

Yes, I/we do conclusively know that the unjust enrichment award is without a factual basis. That type of claim cannot be quantified in terms of sales of a book that covers many topics. Valid unjust enrichment claims are typically based upon sales of a product or service when the seller/provider violated patents, wrongfully obtained trade secret information, etc. The sales are easily quantifiable.

It is impossible, not difficult, not problematic, it's impossible to accurately estimate how many books would have been sold if the Ventura incident had not been included. It's equally impossible to even say that book sales would have been lower at all; they could just as easily been higher without the Ventura incident. Therefore, the jury award for unjust enrichment was purely speculative and speculative damages don't fly in Texas.

I don't need to hear or read what garbage plaintiff's counsel sold to the court or jury to know speculative damages when I see them being awarded. In fact, that's covered in law school in the required "Remedies" course, so even a second year law student knows garbage when they see it. The Texas Supreme Court has addressed "junk science" in appellate cases, so this isn't new or unexplored territory.

Chas.

I'm obviously not a legal scholar so as a layman here is a possibility as I see it. I don't think the story about "Scruff face" sold anything. I think that would be a horrible argument. I do think that the argument that Kyle used that story to get press which then increased his sales would have merit. There have been references to publisher email which talked about using the story and I believe Kyle was on some shows just because of the controversy which that publicity would obviously help his book sales. I don't think it would be hard to show that Kyle received some benefit by using that story to sell his book that translated directly into money. The only issue I would see is how to measure that amount. The idea that a person could show that there was unjust enrichment but because you can't put an exact dollar amount on it you would be unable to recover anything seem unjust at best. Now my understanding in Fed court you don't have to have an exact amount to receive compensation. That it considers unjust enrichment an equitable claim and allow a judge to decide the amount. I've been looking for a law blog that goes more into depth on this subject but haven't had any luck yet.

Also I would think that since we are dealing with book sales you should be able to get some figures on the subject. While they can't be exact I bet the publisher has to have some idea of how much publicity affects sales. How much they expect to recoup from PR expenditures. Heck I've heard at least one email from the publisher was introduced talking about pushing the JV fight story so I wonder if there were other email?

Charles L. Cotton wrote:




Local bias is rarely quantifiable which is why federal law allows state court claims to be filed in (or removed to) federal court under a "Diversity" claim. (That is diversity of state residency.) An entire body of federal law is based upon the reality of local bias. I see it on an intrastate level every time I try a case in a small county and one party or the other is not a resident of that county.

Apparently I misunderstood your numbers argument. You were talking about the amount of money going to the widow v. the money going to Ventura. I thought you were trying to counter my argument that it's impossible to provide accurate evidence about how much more the book allegedly sold because of the inclusion of the Ventura argument, as opposed to what sales would have been without including that incident. Your point is the widow isn't "poor;" my point is that the jury verdict on unjust enrichment is utterly without factual basis. (BTW, I never referred to Chris' widow being poor, only that Ventura went after the widow of a war hero and that's PR suicide.)

Chas.

All I would have to say is that we don't know what the argument is so it's a bit much for me to say that the plaintiffs argumentis without merit or without factual basis.

baldeagle wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:I guess I didn't remember the numbers correctly.......but that is still a HECK of a lot of UDTs KIA. JW is a worm. He was a worm before Chris Kyle ever joined the SEAL teams. The point I was trying to make before is that I don't think it serves anything to belittle UDT contributions, just because they have been replaced in the public eye by the SEAL teams.

I don't think it serves anything either. However, it's despicable that a man who was never a SEAL would claim to be a SEAL. He's trying to appropriate the honor of men who served in extremely dangerous conditions, 48 of whom never came home. His service was honorable, but he chose to steal the honor of others to make himself appear to be something he is not.

I'm proud to be a veteran, but I've always described myself as a Vietnam era veteran, because I never served in Vietnam. I did my duty, and I did it honorably, but I refuse to take away from the men who saw combat and, in some cases, died on the battlefield, to make myself appear to be more than I am. JV has done that all his life. In doing that he has not only dishonored the memories of those dead SEALs but also of his fellow UDT frogmen who served honorably.

This is probably my last post on this but I wanted to give a possible different viewpoint. Not everyone believes the way you do. You yourself quoted a Seal of a much later generation who believes it is OK for JV to call himself a Seal. You also don't seem to take into consideration the very slight differences between the two teams in that era. After graduating BUD/s you basically got to pick which team you went to. Seals or UDT. At that time there was no difference on graduation and any further training was on the team. If, as been suggested by a quote I posted earlier, they were so close in service that anytime JV wanted he could of transferred to a Seal team the next day it isn't unreasonable to think of the Teams as somewhat interchangeable. So you can easily make the argument that JV isn't trying to "get away" with anything. He believes what he says just like others from his era and current times also think it's OK. While the current buzz from the non Seal community is strongly against this until now the Seal community hasn't cared. While some may not of been 100% on it the number of others who saw no issue with it meant that no one said much. I don't think this is something outsiders need to determine which is what I see going on now. While this may be getting to the point where it is totally unexceptionable it wasn't during the vast majority of JV's public career. I'm not saying you should like the guy but lets not rewrite history either.

Charles L. Cotton wrote: If you can't see that being a hometown plaintiff gives one an advantage over an absentee defendant, then you simply don't understand the dynamics of jury trials. That's the entire justification for being able to get state claims into federal court under a diversity theory, but even that's a joke. The jury comes from the same pool of citizens and the judge almost always comes from a state court bench. So eliminating local bias by trying the case in federal court instead of state court is a farce.

I don't know where you are getting the 1/3 percentage for unjust enrichment, but regardless is unfounded. There simply is no way to get reliable evidence to prove that, but for the Ventura incident, the book would have generated only $X as opposed to $Y with the incident included. That's why Texas has a strong rule against speculative damages; we don't let juries award money damages on a hunch or junk science.

Chas.

I understand the theory but have seem nothing that makes me believe that JV is that popular even in Min. Nothing I've read seen or heard gives any real support for that idea. At the most JV would get 1.3 from the estate. JV's lawyers claim 6 mil income from the book but lets say it's closer to 3 or 4. Max JV might take 1/3 of what supposedly isn't even going to be kept or used by the Widow. That is why I said JV wasn't taking money from a poor widow. As to how they arrived at that figure I have zero idea. Have you seen any of the evidence or heard anything that I missed about what the lawyers used to try and convince the jury? From my understanding it's not even final till the judge rules on it and he may very well agree with you. My issue is the pronouncements without real info. Basically guesses and assumptions stated as facts. I'm sure they are educated guesses and reasonable assumptions but still.....

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

EEllis wrote:The idea that JV is going after a poor widow is pure fantasy.

I don't know anything about the lawsuit, other than what has been in the media. Even if Chris' wife wasn't a named party, Ventura was going after her as she is the beneficiary of his estate. Whatever he takes from Chris' estate is something his widow will not receive.

On the subject of fantasy, any finding by a jury of unjust enrichment due to the inclusion of the Kyle/Ventura incident, if any, is pure fantasy. There's no way to provide reliable evidence as to how much more money was generated by the inclusion of that event in the book. If the case had been filed and tried in Texas, it's doubtful the jury would have even seen that question in the jury charge. We correctly don't allow recovery of speculative damages.

As I said before, I didn't see the evidence or hear the testimony, but I suspect the verdict was influenced by the fact that it was tried in Minnesota (Ventura country) and the defendant was not a favorite son. I may be wrong, but there must be some explanation for the jury award on purely speculative damages.

Chas.

Nothing I'm seeing makes me think that JV had any preferential treatment or that his popularity affected him in any positive way. During this trial his celebrity works against him by raising the burden of proof and he still managed to convince 8 out of 10 and convince them that he was do considerable recompense. But even tho people haven't seen the evidence it must be the wrong verdict. Going by the response here it's a good thing the trial wasn't it Texas because I don't see how JV could have a fair hearing and that just saddens me. As to the comment you responded to my point was that in its entirety the award would probably be worth maybe a third of what this book has brought to the estate so far leaving the widow anything but poor regardless of the end result.

b322da wrote:

Jim Beaux wrote:...It is my understanding that the publisher was not a part of this suit and has no liability. I also dont think JV has a case against the publisher. It never printed anything derogatory about him. It merely printed a book that made reference to an unknown as "Scruff face"....

I quote from the OP's cite, "...The $500,000 awarded Ventura for defamation will be paid by the insurance from book publisher HarperCollins, but the $1.3 million unjust enrichment award will presumably come from the money earned from the book, which has sold 1.5 million copies, and from a film based on it that is now in production and directed by Clint Eastwood...."

It would be interesting to know how much money was earned from the sale of 1.5 million copies, and has been earned and is likely to be earned from the film. That is precisely the kind of evidence one would expect would have been put before the jury to assist it in making a reasonable unjust enrichment award.

Jim

I've heard numbers from 3 to 6 mil. I figure it's probably at least 3 with more in the pipeline as the book keeps selling and I have no doubt the estate will get a cut of the movie. Heck in some ways the lawsuit is probably good for the estate. Kyles book didn't really take off until the added press that came from the back and forth with JV. This keeps it in the press and will end up meaning more book sales and more tickets. The idea that JV is going after a poor widow is pure fantasy.

baldeagle wrote:

EEllis wrote:

baldeagle wrote: You obviously didn't bother to read the article I posted. It PROVES JV was never a SEAL and that he lied about being in SEAL Team One.

During Vietnam, UDTs became SEALs by volunteering or being volunteered for SEAL duty. No volunteers were ever turned down, because the SEALs were experiencing high casualty rates and needed replacements constantly. JV claims to have been a SEAL but he never volunteered and he was never volunteered. Graduating from BUD/S didn't make you a SEAL. Volunteering for SEAL duty did. JV has been lying about that his whole life. Go read the article I linked to and then come back here and tell us it's merely a matter of opinion.

What did you post and where? I agree that he was UDT not Seal. How many times must I say it in this thread? And actually serving for 6 months on a Seal team made you a Seal according to the navy. And yes it is a matter of opinion if a UDT can call himself a Seal or at least there are Seals that believe they can. Not all of them, I have no idea the percentages because I doubt anyone has polled them, but I have seen several Seals express the opinion that UDT from that era are entitled to call themselves Seals. Now I don't feel I'm qualified to tell those Seals they are wrong. If you go back up in the thread you will see where williamkevin posted a link to an article form a Seal who thinks JV is entitled. You seem to have misread that because you said that it was a fact not an opinion and that JV was a Seal. Now you get on me for what? Brandon Webb is a Seal, a friend of Kyles's who bashes JV pretty goo, and also believes JV is entitled to call himself a Seal. Now maybe JV shouldn't but with others saying otherwise I don't think you can assume that JV didn't just honestly think it was ok without having more info.

I'll let the readers decide.

But Jesse makes no distinction between those trainees who went to SEAL Teams and those who went to UDTs. He claims to have been a SEAL, as in these observations about going to Army Airborne School at Fort Benning immediately after BUD/S.

"[Airborne instructors] make you drop for push-ups whenever they drop one SEAL, we all drop." (p. 73)

"The second night we were [at Fort Benning], we snuck out and climbed up their water tower with a can of spray paint, and painted 'SEAL Team One' on the side." (p. 73)

There it is: Jesse was in SEAL Team One. He speaks of his pride as a SEAL: "We're a proud organization. If anyone tries to pretend they're a SEAL, God help them. You have to earn the right to be a SEAL warrior." (p. 81)

And later he writes about being deployed UDT12. Again I know you disagree but JV claims that he thinks UDT of that era are the same as Seals and there are Seals that agree. You haven't shown anything that is inconsistent with that, in fact, what you have shown is very consistent with someone who believes what JV claims.

baldeagle wrote: You obviously didn't bother to read the article I posted. It PROVES JV was never a SEAL and that he lied about being in SEAL Team One.

During Vietnam, UDTs became SEALs by volunteering or being volunteered for SEAL duty. No volunteers were ever turned down, because the SEALs were experiencing high casualty rates and needed replacements constantly. JV claims to have been a SEAL but he never volunteered and he was never volunteered. Graduating from BUD/S didn't make you a SEAL. Volunteering for SEAL duty did. JV has been lying about that his whole life. Go read the article I linked to and then come back here and tell us it's merely a matter of opinion.

What did you post and where? I agree that he was UDT not Seal. How many times must I say it in this thread? And actually serving for 6 months on a Seal team made you a Seal according to the navy. And yes it is a matter of opinion if a UDT can call himself a Seal or at least there are Seals that believe they can. Not all of them, I have no idea the percentages because I doubt anyone has polled them, but I have seen several Seals express the opinion that UDT from that era are entitled to call themselves Seals. Now I don't feel I'm qualified to tell those Seals they are wrong. If you go back up in the thread you will see where williamkevin posted a link to an article form a Seal who thinks JV is entitled. You seem to have misread that because you said that it was a fact not an opinion and that JV was a Seal. Now you get on me for what? Brandon Webb is a Seal, a friend of Kyles's who bashes JV pretty goo, and also believes JV is entitled to call himself a Seal. Now maybe JV shouldn't but with others saying otherwise I don't think you can assume that JV didn't just honestly think it was ok without having more info.

baldeagle wrote:

EEllis wrote:That is one way to look at it but the court testimony was the widows so if she says they didn't give money away it seems reasonable to believe it's fact. Now I have already said that I don't blame her for waiting especially with the lawsuit, but there has been plenty of time both before Kyles death and after. There is no denying that the publishers repeat comments about how all of the profit is going to charity as a sales tactic is dishonest. Why would anyone need to show that she bought fancy cloths when they can show the profits which are now reaching something in the area of 6 million dollars and only 52 thousand donated. Heck a foundation would of made things easier tax and financial planning wise so some of the excuses are getting a bit thin.

You seem to forget why we are talking about him right now. It isn't because people are just trying to trash him it's because basically people are trashing JV because Kyle is just so great and how could JV do such a thing. Well people are getting the answer. Kyle wasn't just telling tall tales he lied about a fellow team member telling a story that would damage him in that community to help Kyle sell books or even worse so he could just play big shot on the radio. If Kyle did that, and a jury thinks he did, then it's a bad thing and he shouldn't profit from it. You shouldn't get away with doing bad things because earlier you did good things.

Unless you can prove that she has spent the money you have proven nothing. For all you know it could be sitting in a bank account waiting for her to figure it out so she can find a way to disperse the money without running into tax problems.

Did you read what I posted? I said that I wouldn't blame her for not paying out considering the circumstances so there is nothing that I'm trying to prove

The "sales tactic" of saying all the money is being given away isn't dishonest unless you can disprove it. Stating that she's only given away $52,000 so far proves nothing unless you can also prove that she's spending the money on herself.

So we have to wait until everyone gets old and dies and then if they haven't given all the money away it's a lie? I don't believe that's true. I think if it were a charity that collected millions and only gave out 52,000 then you would be upset. I think it's the same here. Promises were made that people just were not prepared to fulfill. 20 years down the road is not what people expect. I don't even think that is so horrible but don't keep telling me how great they are for giving away money when they haven't given it away yet but your sure they will soon.

Jesse Ventura lied about being a SEAL. There's no question about that. He claimed in his book that he was in SEAL Team One. He was not. He put a photo in his book of himself with his team in a Sea Knight and claimed they were SEALs. They were not. They were UDT. The difference between the two is dramatic. SEALS had very high casualty rates and specialized training and were involved in combat constantly. UDT were almost never in combat and only lost one member when JV was in country. He deserves respect for his service, but lying about what he did and where he served is despicable. It's no wonder the SEALs want nothing to do with him. That wasn't Kyle's doing. Jesse did that to himself.

He doesn't claim he was Seal Team one. In fact he say that he was UDT12. What he wrote was that when he was at jump school he and several guys went up a tower and painted Seal Team 1. You could easily take away that he was saying he was on Seal Team 1 but I don't think you can say he stated or claimed that he stated he was from that. I figure there were guys from other teams there including Seal team 1 and he went along with a prank. He has also stated that he feels UDT and Seal from that era are basically interchangeable. And I hate to break it to you but there are more people than him and more than a few seals who agree.

If you really believe that "You shouldn't get away with doing bad things because earlier you did good things." then you should be condemning JV for lying about being a SEAL. There is very little more despicable than stealing the honor of men who gave their lives in combat.

Since the Seal community isn't even of one mind about if UDT can be called Seals I certainly don't think it's my place to decide for them. But then I'm not looking for a reason or an excuse to bash JV. Personally he's nutty enough I don't see a reason to look, but still doesn't effect Kyle lying and using it to make money.

Jim Beaux wrote:

EEllis wrote:

Jim Beaux wrote:The reason for all these negative stories regarding Kyle are from JV's publicists. Publicists operate beneath the surface and feed info to friendly columnists/bloggers to advance the goals of the client.

Thus the reason why we are bombarded daily with pointless articles about no talent celebrities such as the Kardashians.

It couldn't be because at first everyone just believed everything Kyle said and then after hearing the testimony in court and having some reporters actually try and check Kyles stories they started finding more and more lies? No it must be because of a publicist.

I dont like your condescending manner, belay it.

It's a shame you don't like me but I think sarcasm is valid when people make certain statements. Looking at it tho you're right in that I could of very well left out the last sentence and still easily made my point and I probably should of done so. Mind you that "belay it" bit is at least as offensive as anything I wrote and much more directly confrontational. I will edit my post but really "belay it"?

JP171 wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

williamkevin wrote:Interesting debate about weather or not he was a real SEAL. I don't know where the line is drawn, but here is an article about this specifically written by Brandon Webb:
http://sofrep.com/36086/truth-jesse-ven ... al-status/

Everyone has their own opinion on this, and this one is Brandon's.

It isn't an opinion. Brandon is correct. He graduated from BUD/S. He's a SEAL. He's a dirtbag too, but he's a SEAL. Just like John McCain, who served honorably and endured torture as a POW but now makes a complete ass of himself, Jesse went from being an honorable veteran to a dirtbag.

It happens sometimes. He should still be honored for his service but criticized for his jerkwad behavior now. Being a veteran doesn't exempt you from legitimate criticism.

JV the JACKANPES DID NOT complete SEAL training, he completed the BASIC UNDER WATER DEMOLITION TECHNICIAN course, there is a lot more to being a SEAL than blowing stuff up, the little wench did NOT complete Jump School(he failed), he did NOT complete Air Assault school(didn't get past the arch), he did NOT complete or even enter Ranger Q course. THE JACKANAPES IS NOT A SEAL he is a Under water Demolition Technician BASIC level. same as not every muncher LEG is an Airborne Ranger nor a Special Forces Operator. Anyone that thinks different doesn't know the SEAL Q Course nor the SF Q Course nor anything about OPERATORS in the SOC period, don't like that, hmmm well. and YES I have been there done that got the T-shirt and patch, crossed arrows

I'm no expert and my opinion means nothing but I will say I have read several articles and comments and at the very least there is some disagreement in the "Seal" community about the issue. He was UDT 12 and at that time, 1970, you had to complete BUD/s and then you were assigned to a team. After 6 months on a team you were then a frogman or seal. While they did plenty of training they did not complete any other schools before being assigned to a team and you got your NEC 5326, UDT's were 5321, after being on a seal team for 6 months not for finishing certain schools. So if JV had decided to go seals during the war he could of transferred within days of putting in because the casualty rate was high enough that they sometime didn't bother to ask for volunteers. So the training crap you're spouting doesn't seem accurate for when JV served which makes me wonder.

Jim Beaux wrote:The reason for all these negative stories regarding Kyle are from JV's publicists. Publicists operate beneath the surface and feed info to friendly columnists/bloggers to advance the goals of the client.

Thus the reason why we are bombarded daily with pointless articles about no talent celebrities such as the Kardashians.

It couldn't be because at first everyone just believed everything Kyle said and then after hearing the testimony in court and having some reporters actually try and check Kyles stories they started finding more and more lies?