TexasCHLforum.com

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

In steps the lamb where lions fear to tread.

I think that it may be somewhat disingenuous of this forum to fairly unanimously consider a decedent's estate to be his "widow," particularly where much, but by no means all, of the financial value of that estate may have come from the sale of what a jury has found to be defamatory material, and with the jury having found that nearly 3/4 of the damages assessed were for unjust enrichment. Furthermore, a real question as to who will pay what, considering that the other defendant, the publisher, apparently had insufficient insurance, is there in between the lines.

I look forward to hearing from someone who, when it happens, can let us know a little more about the ultimate outcome of the lawsuit.

I am taking no position on the merits of the lawsuit. I know only what I read in the OP's cite, which appears to most commentators here to be quite adequate on which to base one's conclusions.

Jim