Video Discription |
Kari Lake recently conceded liability for defamatory statements that she made against Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in the lawsuit he filed against her, but that doesn't mean the case is over. This week, the judge granted Richer's request for discovery for the punitive damages case that he has against Lake, which is a huge step forward for his lawsuit. Punitive damages often far exceed other damages, and this could mean Lake could end up on the hook for millions of dollars. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.
Link - https://meidasnews.com/news/judge-grants-discovery-for-punitive-damages-against-kari-lake
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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.
Republican Senate candidate for Arizona Ka Lake suffered a massive legal blow this past week when Judge Randall Warner, who has been overseeing the defamation lawsuit, filed against Kari Lake by Maricopa County Recorder, Stephen Ricker, uh, judge Warner agreed with Ricker and has allowed discovery to move forward for the punitive damages portion of his lawsuit against Kerry Lake. Now, before I read you what this judge said in this ruling that absolutely decimate Kerry Lake, by the way, um, let me give you all of the updates on what's been happening with this lawsuit. Of course, Steven Ricker is a Republican. He is the Republican reporter or recorder, excuse me, for Maricopa County. He's in charge of the largest county in Arizona's elections. Kerry Lake, after she lost the, uh, gubernatorial race in 2022, drug this man's name through the mud, accused him of somehow rigging things so that the Democrat would win, even though he's a Republican.
And so slandered defamed everything with this man. He files the defamation lawsuit, it drags on for a year and a half, and then recently Ka Lake, knowing that she's gotta focus more on her Senate run than on the lawsuit conceded to the court. She says, okay, fine. I admit it. I defame the guy. So let's just move on. You tell me what I owe. So that brings us to this point. She admitted liability at that point. She says, let me know what the compensatory damages are. And Mr. Ricker said, well, hold up. This isn't just compensatory damages. We also have something called punitive damages. Punitive damages in cases like this are typically far greater than the compensatory damages. Think about the, uh, defamation lawsuit from Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss against Giuliani. Same thing with Eugene Carroll against Donald Trump. The actual compensatory damages were relatively low. The punitive damages on the other, uh, side sky high. So punitive damages is where Mr. Ricker is really gonna get to just nail her to the wall. So Kerry Lake comes out and tells the judge, uh, that she opposed any discovery on the issue of punitive damages on the grounds that Ricker hadn't met the burden to show that they were appropriate.
And that's when the judge in his ruling said, hold the hell up there, Carrie. He said, as Lake rightly points out, a party is not entitled to discovery regarding the amount of punitive damages until a Prima Fosse case for punitive damages is made. But Ricker met his prima Fosse burden when Lake admitted the allegations and the complaint, because both the defendant's wealth and
The the degree of culpability are relevant to the amount of punitive damages, Ricker is entitled to discovery on both. So Ka Lake was trying to argue like, Hey, he hasn't proven that, that I defamed him, right? Like, you can't just do that. And the judge is like, are you freaking serious? Like you admitted it, you already conceded liability to the court. You, you don't get to take that back. You told us you did it. So yes, he is entitled to this. So open yourself up for discovery and as the judge mentions, like your financial status, your net worth, your assets, your holdings, that is what Mr. Ricker will now get to look at. And once they get that information, they will present it to the court. And I'm not sure if this is a jury trial or not, but that information will either be given to the jury or it will be given to the judge who will make the final determination. And then they will look at Carrie Lake's financial situation. They're gonna see how much money she has, and then they're gonna say, okay, well you have this much and you're gonna give this much of it to this guy for what you did. And by the way, for what you freely admitted to the court that you did. So you can't argue your way outta this one, Carrie. You already told the court you did it. And that decision is coming back to haunt you and it's going to be haunting you financially in the very near future. |