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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>New Mexico decided to go it alone and gets $25 billion.

No because that's still subject to appeal, unlike the settlement. "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush", etc.

What are the grounds for the appeal? How does NM law look on that issue? It's a significantly reduced judgment too.

Like, yeah, you have a point in the abstract, but barring any actual supportive facts, it doesn't seem like a good point.

IANAL, but it's not hard to find answers with a trivial search, eg.

https://kieferandkiefer.com/understanding-how-jury-verdicts-...

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2006/R331...

It's not a jury verdict, and I am a lawyer...

Also, a paper from RAND from 1987? Are you for real?

I'm just a standard idiot, but didn't the jury return a verdict and the judge impose a penalty per found violation as a result here? https://nmcourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Findings-and...

Genuinely curious and interested in learning!

The jury found liability. That's not the same thing as a jury making a damages determination on an amount. The judge imposed the penalty in accordance with the statute, and then went further and gave it a huge discount because how large it was.

Ah, so it's the penalty that's considered the verdict instead of the finding of liability? So much jargon in the world, so hard to track it all correctly :). Thanks!

It's really besides the point because what the other poster linked was articles about reducing jury damages verdicts. These were not jury-imposed damages and none of the bases that apply to reducing jury damage verdicts apply in this context.

It's a very good point. The further upon appeal Meta goes, the more removed they get from a jury and they'll be more likely to get a favorable ruling due to the company's negative approval rating amongst the public

Presumably it’s also easier to influence judges than random jurors.

It's not a jury verdict. Crazy how much that needs to be repeated in this thread.

No one reads the article anymore. They're just vibe commenting.

A jury is involved in the process. If the jury doesn't find violations, the judge can't assign penalties for those violations.

> The jury concluded that Meta had more than 43 million violations of the state’s unfair practices act, with each transgression carrying a civil penalty as high as $5,000.

Note that this is like, 20 violations per resident of New Mexico. And also ~50% of Facebook's total revenue (more than 100% of income) at the time of the CA scandal.

Yeah, the jury found liability. They didn't render the verdict. The judge did, at a huge discount from the statutory rate. Not sure what you think you're adding to this discussion.

> The judge did, at a huge discount from the statutory rate.

The judge assigned penalties below the statutory maximum, but maximums are rarely assigned and both the number of counts and ultimate number the judge came up with are all dubious.

> Not sure what you think you're adding to this discussion.

Well, aren't you abrasive. What do you think you were adding here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50187613? It's either not responsive to the grandparent comment or needed rebutting. I rebutted, under the generous assumption your comment was responsive.

>The judge assigned penalties below the statutory maximum, but maximums are rarely assigned and both the number of counts and ultimate number the judge came up with are all dubious.

The jury found the violations were willful, that's why they were assessed at the statutory maximum. Do you have any support for your allegation that the judge's counts were dubious.

>Well, aren't you abrasive. What do you think you were adding here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50187613? It's either not responsive to the grandparent comment or needed rebutting. I rebutted, under the generous assumption your comment was responsive.

Correcting the misnomer that the judgment was overturnable on the basis that it was found by a jury, when it wasn't. Genuinely surprised you don't see the connection there.

>It's either not responsive to the grandparent comment or needed rebutting. I rebutted, under the generous assumption your comment was responsive.

Yeah I'm sticking with my position, thanks.

That’s all framing. If they use the win for their reelection campaign…they just won’t mention the appeals process.

Yeah, I'm from Baltimore and our city government had the amount awarded in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers reduced on appeal. Bummer.

Somewhat frustratingly, Baltimore did the same thing with a judgement on about illegal firearms sales (ghost guns), reducing an assessed $62M penalty down to just $2M in the actual settlement.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/baltimore-city-reache...

Isn't 25 the appealed amount, and 200 the original?

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