Scruff Face loses on appeal
Richard and Chip send us links to the latest chapter to the “Scruff Face” story. An appeals court has tossed out the $1.8 million judgement in the case of Chris Kyle and Jimmy Janos AKA Jesse Ventura. Kyle claimed in his book that he had knocked out Janos in a bar fight after Janos was disrespectful towards a fallen SEAL.
The Miami Herald explains;
A key issue in the appeal was whether Kyle acted with “actual malice,” a demanding legal standard laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Times v. Sullivan case in 1964. It means a plaintiff who’s a public figure must prove that a defendant knew that the statement in question was false or made it with reckless disregard for whether it was false. Kyle’s estate argued that the judge gave the jury faulty instructions on that point.
A separate issue was the $1.3 million award for unjust enrichment. Ventura’s attorneys argued that “American Sniper” shot to the top of the best-seller lists only because Kyle’s statements about Ventura thrust him into the national spotlight. The Kyle estate argued that no other court had awarded damages for unjust enrichment for allegedly defamatory speech.
The majority of the three-judge 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel says that portion of the entire case fails as a matter of law.
The majority also vacated the defamation award, but sent that portion of the case back to court for a new trial.
Category: Legal
That’s gonna burn Janos (non-combat) tin foil hat wearing head like that Nano-Thermite he rants about.
imho
Didn’t he serve in Vietnam? I thought I read that somewhere.
He eludes to it like a private explaining why he was late for P.T. His time was spent drunk in the Philippine’s or California.
No, he was UDT and spent his overseas time fighting Bargirls in the P.I. never in Nam. Scruff Face was not a SEAL operator. Joe
Back then, SEALs and UDT were two different jobs. He was UDT, though he constantly claims to have been a SEAL. He served during the Nam era, but as was mentioned, in the Philippines.
I read an article somewhere discussing the specifics of it, fairly interesting.
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1999/dec/02/jesse-great-pretender-ventura/
http://cursor.org/venturawatch/dangerous_game.htm
Senior chief might see that differently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeO1DUtnKsE Starts almost exactly at 1 minute in.
The Hair is staying away from this one. There was no seperate Schooling for the two at the time.
Some went UDT,some went SEAL. If Scruff-face really wanted to be on a SEAL team he could have volunteered in the morning and had orders by lunch.
He is losely considered a Vietnam Vet because he deployed on ship with an Amphimbious Readiness Group (ARG). They spent time in the waters that were considered part of the conflict area.
Shipley is being nice, and also being prudent. Janos has deep enough pockets and has Lawyers that would Go after Don in a way that would make Bernath’s bullshit look like child’s play.
The Hair knows where to pick his battles and that its simply not worth drawing the line on Scuffy Balls bullshit.
It says on his DD214 “UDT/SEAL” training. So I think Shipley is right that he did complete Seal training. I understand he didn’t go all the way after that by joining a team in Vietnam. So either way I don’t think we can completely disregard his claim to be a Seal, especially when Shipley backs him up.
He never came within sight of Vietnamese dirt.
Not sure about that, TOW. I’ve seen partial documents (they appear to be redacted portions of his DD214) that indicate he left active duty with a VSM and the NDSM.
http://cursor.org/venturawatch/foia_docs.htm
It appears the VSM was for duty afloat with little if any time on shore – and absolutely no ground combat. But I’ve never been able to pin that down definitively one way or another.
You’re right. I hold old Scruff Face’s award of a VSM in the same vein as those who viewed the setting sun from the Santa Monica Pier and were awarded the VSM or did a one time fly-over just to see the sights.
Especially those who were “time travelers” like that Navy E-1 over 20 who pulled guard on the docks while the US was reclaiming it’s equipment from Saigon in 1975.
What the Hell was his name? Just can’t remember it right off the top of my head.
Ah, got it.
The time traveling E-1 over 20 years was Gary Briggs.
I knew his name was in one of the dusty file drawers of my mind.
Yeh, served drinks in a whore house bar!
Well, the “guv” is going to have to go back to cleaning toilets!!
I hope that that jackass hasn’t spent the whole award on Mexican hookers yet.
?????
That wouldn’t take long, given the amount necessary to make a hooker willing to service his toxic ass.
Had any money actually changed hands? I think the money was held in escrow or something pending an appeal. I don’t know the legal niceties of the case, but I don’t think the suit should have been brought. (Based solely on what I know. Other opinions may vary.) Someone asks if he got his clock cleaned, he should have said, ‘hell yeah, he got me good’ or words along that line. No shame in getting one’s clock cleaned. (Unless done repeatedly to one b/c they are a bag of dicks.)
I have heard that the law firm handling the case for the widow is doing so w/o cost. If so, that’s a class act. Otherwise, any judgement could be paid with a couple of rolls of dimes.
That’s good to hear and I hope it’s true. If Jimmy Janos were to be ordered to pay court costs and legal fees for both sides, would they be allowed to turn around and stick Janos with a bill for their time? My dumbshit curiosity has taken over for the moment.
No recovery of attorneys fees is possible in this type of civil suit. The ultimate winner can only recover court costs(other than attorney’s fees), which would be added to the final judgment. There will be another jury trial of the defamation claim, unless there is a pre-trial settlement. If Janos loses the re-trial he will be subject to a judgment for costs, which could run to tens of thousands of $$.
Let us hope the correct instructions are given out. But based on what I have seen from the justice system lately, I have my doubts.
Ahahahaha.
A fairly dismal Monday just got a little bit better.
Great news!
Boom
I Needed a good laugh
?????
?????
Let’s hope that Joe “Titty Baby, Piss Drinking” Teti can see the same fate.
Nice. Very nice. I’m hoping that Jimmy spent the award, placing purchases on credit in anticipation of his big payday. That would be too sweet.
Jesse, meet this sweet bitch, Karma.
And man does she like to fuck……..
Too bad the appeals court didn’t order the whole thing dismissed with prejudice. Still, anything that takes ill-gotten gains out of UDT Jimmy-boi’s hands is a good thing.
“The Kyle estate also said the judge improperly let the jury hear that publisher Harper Collins had an insurance policy to cover a defamation award and attorney fees.” Oopsie. That’s a no-no. You may know from a PI case that whether you have insurance covering medical expenses and lost time from work is irrelevant to an award you may receive as a result of someone’s tort. The harm done is not to be lessened because YOU acted responsibly in acquiring insurance that covers your losses. In this case, the sting of effectively punishing Mrs. Kyle was removed from the jury by their hearing that Kyle carried insurance. Big boo-boo. And the defamation part of this case is to be RETRIED. Sometimes, a case is sent back for reconsideration of an outlandish award. Not here. Jimmy’s mouthpieces now have to decide whether, under the new constraints, they have a likely winner. And that’s not a certainty.
Scruff face will say he was bullied by Kyle and denied access to a safe space.
And he now identifies as a woman, so Kyle was a woman beater.
If I was scruffy’s attorney (I was one for 36 yrs) I would try to settle for a sizeable chunk of Harper Collins’ policy limits and call it a day. But then, Janos is not smart enough to take that kind of legal advice.
Ok, what do you think of the 8th Circuit’s discussion of the defamation issue? Regarding the “story” issue, it appears to me that the district court gave unclear instructions to the jury and really screwed up the insurance issue. If Kyle thinks that those might go the other way, she may elect a new trial.
I note that the same assholes who kept pounding the “Kyle lied” drum are still at it. Oh, did I say “assholes” out loud? Sorry.
I also note that the 8th Circuit tossed the unjust-enrichment judgement. That award did not conform to Minnesota law so it cannot come back. Kyle already won on the misappropriation claim. I don’t understand that one at all, if there is a new trial, could that come back?
I thought that the Circuit’s language used for the $500k defamation award was interesting, “probably not beyond the bounds of rationality”. It sounds to me like the Circuit had an attitude about that number but they were just a little too polite to voice it.
Below is a link yo the publoshed decision. In answer to your questions, there is only ONE item that may be retried, the question of whether Kyle defamed Janos. That’s it. Since Janos brought the case, he may withdraw the case or pursue the case. However, the fact that the original jury was heavily conflicted on the issue of defamation will likely weigh heavily in the decision to go at it again or not. Also, the payday, if it occurs at all, will be greatly reduced from the multiple awards that came from the first trial.
http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/16/06/143876P.pdf
yo the publoshed decision?
Yeah, like I said. It’s worth repeating: yo the publoshed decision. Cripes.
Coded message of the day, understood, and filed. We move at nightfall, check ammo, weaponry, and rations before assembly.
Did you read that? OMG what a complete Cluster F#$k! Reminds me of a Judge in Will County Il who denied a Public Defender the right to enter evidence at trial. When She told him he couldn’t do that, he said, “So sue me, that’s what I have malpractice insurance for.” And people wonder why I have such a dour outlook on the legal profession.
2/17 – yup, I was reading the opinion when I shot off my mouth above. It appears to me that the 8th Circuit whacked the District Court judge directly on his pee-pee. If there is a new trial, I would want a different judge – one who knows the law and one who wasn’t recently smacked down by the Circuit. But then I don’t know anything about such things.
Probably the biggest mistake the Kyle team made was agreeing to a split jury decision – had they (rightfully) held out for a unanimous verdict, Janos would not have won the first time.
Instant Karma’s gonna get you….
and it happens to be today assclown…hahahahahhaha
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving moldy roach turd of a has-been! I too hope he went on a wildassed spending spree in anticipation of a payoff, now he can go back to Mexico AND STAY THERE.
I’m sure there’s a government conspiracy to blame for his misfortune. He shoulda grounded that tinfoil hat a little better. Or got a copper one from Skippy!
Well, good. Shove it right back up Janus’ orifice.
Chris Kyle was a hero, Scruff Face is a zero.
Is he still in the Mexican desert acting as a UFO flight coordinator?
Scruff-Face can fuck himself while he weeps like a little bitch about this decision, and also about the fact that he’ll never, ever appear in “The Expendables.”
Well, this is interesting. Is it in Texas?
So, jimmy got bitch slapped down by Chris Kyle again……this time from the grave.
Love it!
I’m no fan of Jimmy Janos/Jessie Ventura but listen to Don Shipley’s take on him…..
And Don Shipley’s word is good enough for me on that issue.
Janos is still a piece of garbage, though.
To each his own.
While I greatly respect Senior Chief Shipley, people who served during Vietnam do NOT share his opinion on the matter. According to those who were both UDT and SEAL during Vietnam, the two specialties during that time frame (1) had different NECs (it wasn’t until the 1980s the ratings were combined); (2) performed different roles and missions; and (3) faced very different levels of physical risk. Only the initial training (BUD/S) was the same.
During Vietnam, movement from UDT (reasonably safe duty) to SEAL (seriously hazardous) was also apparently available on demand. (Moving the other way doesn’t seem to have been as easy.) Janos could indeed have become a SEAL, like his brother reputedly did. But he never requested to move from UDT to SEAL.
In this matter, personally I’ll give more weight to the opinion of those who were there and know firsthand. YMMV.
I’m in partial agreement with both radar and Hondo. I don’t question Don Shipley on matters Navy and/or Navy SEAL related. HOWEVER, he, (Ja-anus) could have saved face by merely stating “We disagree on the facts, however Mr Kyle is not available for rebuttal. Therefore the matter is hereby closed.” Period. That would have worked miles for me. Constant litigation against his wife does not bode well with me. Let sleeping dogs lie. s’all I have to say about that. The Vietnam vets Hondo speaks to? I humbly respect their opinion as well.
Ya, well Liberace’s little brother was having an off day when he made that video. Little Jimmy Janos was not a SEAL.
I don’t think Donnie realized Janos had made claims of being a Vietnam veteran while he was a SEAL.
Janos made his living being a blow hard, little left now but a fart in the wind.
Janos served, but he also embellished his career. He was never in Vietnam or any country near it. That is a disgrace to any Admin Clerk that was in the NAM.
I wonder is our comrade knows they still make this stuff:
http://c4.soap.com/images/products/p/ACI/ACI-082_1z.jpg
Liberace was 50 times manlier than Janos.
Janos may have visited Liberace’s day bed. I heard that rumor once.
Yes but if you lick your fingers after using it you will get lead poisoning. Wonder if that is jimmys problem?
Yes, and?
There is no dispute here that Jimmy Janos was a UDT guy or that Kyle was a SEAL. Thus, it follows that the two shared the experience of similar training decades apart. And that’s where the commonality ends. Kyle has the respect of a grateful nation and an unimpeachable combat record. Janos has an attorney or two.
Well. That’s done. Wish it was also over. With this clown, it may never be over. Bless his evil heart.
FTA,”He testified at trial that he never made the statements and that the confrontation never happened. He also said the book ruined his reputation in the tight-knit SEAL community.”
Wrong again. His reputation was ruined long before the bar incident, and not just in the SEAL community.
He was sort of a fun, crazy Uncle for a time.
He’d show up at graduations in Coronado, was asked to speak more than once.
Always had some nice cigars for the boys, frequently bought drinks, supplied a keg or three.
After the stint as Gov. and the beginning of the tinfoil had crowd associations, he started to change and not for the better.
What his defenders and the attackers of Chris Kyle’s legacy either don’t know or never mention is that the ‘incident’ was talked about for a long time among the guys. Usually the initial chat was an inquiry backed by disbelief: “I heard he said this at a Teamguy’s Wake. Did it really happen?”
Sad and disgusting and nobody’s fault but his own.
Once upon a time, a Drill Sergeant told me that “Sometimes, a person’s highest lifetime achievement is to be a bad example for someone else. Do not be that person.”
Can we send him a mirror with that statement engraved on it?
Where else did Jimmy Janos graduate from, the Daniel A. Bernath School of Ethics?
Too bad Mrs. Kyle’s attorneys weren’t able to change venue to someplace other than where Jimmy was governor, because I think a jury of other than Minn. voters would have been much less likely to issue a plaintiff’s verdict.
If Kyle didn’t punch him he should have. Very happy to see this.
These 2 writings should be somehow permanently pinned to any mention of Ventura.
They are written by a former SEAL Officer and Vietnam Veteran.
I would not take the writings as some sort of ‘counter’ to Senior Chief Shipley’s statement. Senior Chief Shipley is explaining the ‘default’. For example, there is no way I would ever say to a Korean War UDT member “You weren’t a SEAL, you were ‘just’ a UDT member”.
But during Vietnam, there were very significant and specific differences when both NECs existed. This is explained in these writings.
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1999/dec/02/jesse-great-pretender-ventura/
http://cursor.org/venturawatch/dangerous_game.htm
Might want to post this link along with them, mr. sharkman. IMO it does a much better job at detailing the Vietnam-era situation re: UDT and SEAL – and at debunking the “Ventura was a SEAL” myth.
http://cursor.org/stories/seal_or_udt_printer_friendly.htm
One of the greatest men I ever knew and looked up to in my wayward youth was an old Wyoming cowboy named Bill Shaw. I knew he was a WWII Navy vet but he never talked about it much, just a couple of blurry tats on his forearms. He opened up one night over a couple beers, turned out he was “just” UDT all over the Pacific and still had the occasional PTSD nightmare. Godspeed, Papa Shaw, we all miss you.
Sense we’re talking UDT this and SEAL that, juts wanted to through out that NCDU’s concepts from SeaBee’s were the geniuses of “UDT” and most of them came from SeaBees of WWII fame and cleared all beaches in Europe while “UDT” did pacific. Most of the original “NCDU’S” that became UDT’s came from SeaBees. Here’s a photo from one of the UDT teams to the Marines. The ones that stayed “NCDU’S” would never call themselves “UDT” or “SEAL”
http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/engforum/uploads/monthly_02_2011/post-304-1297222837.jpg
I love you guys’ comments – keep me laughing and I appreciate it. As for Cuntura, I have despised his sorry ass for a long time anyway but when he pressed on with a lawsuit against a young widow and her kids, that nailed it. and his insane claim that people bought Chris’ book because of a couple of paragraphs about a washed up, loudmouth loser…. that was almost enough to make me puke. Hope the scumbag goes broke for what he did.
My first knowledge of Ventura happened when I was stationed in Germany in 1987.
I was one of the few soldiers in my section to have bought a TV at the PX and so my roommate would turn on the silly professional wrestling shows they used to run on AFN at that time.
As an upper middle class kid from the ‘burbs I hadn’t really had any exposure to “professional wrestling” but everyone else seemed to want to watch it and it’s not like there was anything else on so on Saturday afternoons we’d gather ’round the little 15″ screen in my room in our Franco-Prussian War era barracks (Hindenburg Kaserne in Ansbach) and watch.
Ventura at that time was a “commentator” and came across as a blowhard, loudmouth clown. (Of course, so did everyone else involved in the “sport” of wrestling.)
Even after he started acting in Ah-nold Schwarzenegger movies (was “Running Man” before “Predator?” I can’t remember) he still came across as the same kind of loudmouth idiot who would say or do anything for attention.
By the time he became a serious contender for the MN governorship I couldn’t believe that anybody would take him seriously. I guess he was lucid long enough to get elected but as soon as he left office he seems to have gone completely off the deep end (or, more likely, simply reverted to his normal self.)
Anyway, this reversal couldn’t have happened to a more deserving recipient. I read Kyle’s book and I understand there are a lot of controversies about it. If you believe the critics, Kyle was no slouch in the “embellishing” department as well. Still, even if his critics are 100% correct, Kyle was 10x the sailor that Janos was.
MJ, it was a pretty close call on both The Running Man and Predator.
Both came out in 1987.
Predator was released on June 12th and The Running Man was released on November 13th.
I still laugh every time I think of Old Scruff Face “The Body” in his pink tutu.
Janos was only elected MN Gov due to one of those “perfect storm” situations. He showed up during the 2nd Clintoon Administration when people were somewhat fed up with both major parties. He also had the luck to run in MN – which has had a history of heavy support for 3rd parties and other “interesting” candidates. He then managed to score the nomination of Perot’s old party – and Perot had pulled 20+% of the vote in 1992, and about 12% in 1996.
He ran as a fiscal conservative and social liberal. That resonated with MN’s rather odd electorate (MN doesn’t have a “Democratic” party – they have a “Democratic-Farm-Labor” party), and he drew off support from both sides (but more from the DFL party). He won in a 3-way race with less than 37% of the popular vote (no runoff).
Bottom line: Janos’ stint as governor was one of those electoral accidents of history that happen every so often. He was simply in the right place at the right time, and scored the winning lottery ticket.
He didn’t bother to run for reelection in 2002.
Jesse Ventura has scruff on his face.