This morning, a Florida appeals judge ruled that the trial in Hulk Hogan’s civil suit against Gawker (for publishing footage of a video of him having sex that was shot without his knowledge or permission), originally scheduled to start this coming Monday (July 6, 2016), must be delayed indefinitely. TKTK, Gawker’s own media-oriented blog, has the details as well as a copy of the judge’s ruling.
What happened is actually pretty simple: Rule 1440 of Florida’s rules of civil court procedure require a minimum of 50 days between the last pleading (any kind of filing in the case) being served and the start pf a trial. Since the presiding judge, Pamela Campbell, set the trial date on June 19th, that meant that, in the words of the appeals court judge, she “plainly violated rule 1440.”
Gawker had been previously attempted to get the trial delayed via Judge Campbell. A federal court judge ruled in their favor in their lawsuit against the FBI (to get the records of their investigation into the origins of the video), but the FBI has been dragging its feet in providing the materials and just making things difficult in general. Campbell had refused to delay the trial, so this is a big win for them.
Gawker sent the following statement to WrestlingInc:
The delay of the trial provides us the important opportunity to find out more about the three Hulk Hogan video recordings obtained by the FBI that appear highly relevant to the facts of the case. We have the right to know the full story and are concerned because one of the tapes produced by the FBI today is incomplete while there is a serious irregularity in another tape.
Meanwhile, yesterday, the Tampa Bay Times reported that Judge Campbell ruled that at trial, the monitors playing back (Gawker’s 101 second edit of) the sex tape will be arranged so that only the jurors can see it. Not only did Gawker fight the motion, but numerous media organizations did as well, citing Florida rules about the media being a proxy for the general public.
