Overview
- The Texas Third Court of Appeals on Friday reduced a $50 million damage award against Alex Jones to $1.5 million, saying the trial court abused its discretion by allowing a post-verdict amendment that pushed the award past the state cap.
- The court applied Texas law that limits exemplary damages to $750,000 per plaintiff and found plaintiffs did not prove harassment tied to Jones’s hoax claims rose to a level that would justify awards above that cap.
- The reduction affects only the Texas case and does not change a separate $1.4 billion judgment from Connecticut, which remains in place after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn it.
- During the earlier damages trial Jones said the Sandy Hook shooting was “100% real,” and families testified that they endured years of death threats and harassment they linked to his false hoax claims.
- Jones and his company remain in bankruptcy and he gave up the Infowars brand while moving his shows to other sites, a combination that complicates how much money victims can collect and highlights how rulings in different states produce uneven remedies.