The Charlottesville Fallout, with Dr. Michael Hill of the League of the South

The Charlottesville Fallout with Dr. Michael Hill

After the aborted Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, teams of Jewish lawyers from New York and Washington, DC assembled to collect plaintiffs from among the antifa-connected activists and from among the supposed victims of the James Fields auto wreck in order to file a lawsuit against all groups and organizing parties attending the rally. We have been waiting for the trial and outcome of the case ever since, and now the first stage has finally come to pass.

On November 23rd a jury in Charlottesville handed down a split verdict in the Unite the Right lawsuit trial, where they could not reach a decision on the first two claims in the suit, which are the most important claims. They are related to whether or not there was a conspiracy in violation of Federal law, based on the so-called 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act. In my opinion, if there was really such a conspiracy, or if such a conspiracy was provable, there would most likely have been federal charges. However the grounds for claims 3 and 4 of the suit were based on a State of Virginia conspiracy law citing a supposed conspiracy to intimidate, harass or harm on the part of all of the defendants, and whether there was also a more specific conspiracy to commit racial, religious or ethnic harrassment or violence, on the part of some of the defendants. Once again, there were never any criminal charges related to those claims at the state level.

However claims 3 and 4 prevailed with the jury, in spite of their lengthy deliberations. But the League of the South was only found culpable by the jury in claim 3, as being a party to a conspiracy “to intimidate, harass or harm”, even though none of the Plaintiffs were directly harmed by the League, and the League views its actions from a completely different perspective than the Plaintiffs, and evidently, also the jury. Claim 4 only affected five leaders of the so-called Alt-Right.

However even though the jury awarded ridiculous punitive damages of 11 million dollars for claim 3, of which 2 million is attributed to the League and its officers, it is very unlikely since stand as the compensatory damages for the claim, which are supposed to represent compensation for actual injury, only totaled 7 dollars for all nine defendants.

But even with that news, there are many analysts skeptical about the suit who do not see it as any real victory for the Plaintiffs. For example, the Fox News legal correspondent, an East Asian female named Seema Iyer, without really knowing anything about the financial health of the League of the South or its officers, the size of its membership or that of any of the other organizations involved, saw the outcome of this case as a major fail and a “bad day” for the Plaintiffs and their attorneys. But she used words like “only” to describe amounts in the million-dollar range, and described them as a “dent” to the defendants. In my own opinion, even if the Plaintiffs attorneys could possibly collect every dime of the original award, they would not recover the expenses involved as they created and executed the lawsuit.

Of course, I am not an attorney, but lawyers outside of the case have already stated that the case is governed by a Virginia State law capping punitive damages at 350 thousand dollars per defendant. However there are even further factors in whether the Plaintiffs will ever be able to collect such a ridiculous amount of money. One of those factors is the Campbell vs. State Farm U.S. Supreme Court decision. In that 6-3 decision, Justice Kennady wrote the consenting opinion and said that “The Court reasoned that evidence of dissimilar out-of-state misconduct was an improper basis for punishing the insurer for the limited harm and noted, "few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process." A single-digit ratio for punitive damages being less than 10 dollars for each of the seven injured Plaintiffs, I remember Michael Hill stating in social media within a day of the decision that he would be happy to fork over $70. Having listened to most of the trial, I remember League of the South lawyer, Brian Jones asking the lead attorney for the Plaintiffs if she would like to reargue Campbell vs State Farm before the Supreme Court. Hopefully it will not get that far, and if justice truly is blind, it shall not. But of course, we also know that the courts have been used as political tools in the hands of our enemies, enemies who occupy both sides of every debate.

In contrast, one of the high-profile multi-jurisdictional law firms which provided services to the Plaintiffs published an article titled “Charlottesville Plaintiffs Secure Justice Against White Supremacist Leaders and Groups With Historic Lawsuit Win” and the Jewish lawyer who played the role of leading devil at the trial, who works as a senior counself for that same firm, is quoted as having said that “it's a constant battle to protect our dignity and try to rid this kind of racist, anti-Semitic attitude from the nation's core…” It seems to me that the real conspiracy here is on the part of the law firms which cooperated with antifa-connected residents of Charlottesville to create this lawsuit. But the odds are clearly not in favor of a poor White racist against a host of wealthy Jewish law firms in their own arena.

But if the 26-million-dollar award stands, it will send a signal to thousands of plaintiffs attorneys that perhaps the Supreme Court is not willing to uphold the decision it had made in Campbell v. State Farm, and also serves as final proof that all men are not equal in the eyes of the law, especially if they are White men.

Click here for a text file detailing the judgments handed down by the jury, as well as a list of the names of lawyers, defendants and other information.

Click here for an article on Virginia conspiracy laws from the law firm Troutman Sanders, LLP Richmond, VA

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CLAIM 3: This is the only for claim which the League of the South was found responsible, along with all of the other defendants. Virginia State Civil Conspiracy – I have not seen a statute related to this claim, but I have a document from a law firm in Virginia which expalins that there is both a Virginia Common Law Civil conspiracy, and another type described in specific Virginia Statutes § 18.2-499 and 2-500, titled “Combinations to injure others in their reputation, trade, business or profession; rights of employees.” So this claim must be based on the Virginia Common Law, which I have not yet been able to search for appropriately, although I failed to find it in official Virginia State sources with a precursory search. In any event, in the law firm document it seems to be adequately described, and I will present a small part of it here:

B. Stating a Claim for Common Law Conspiracy Under Virginia Law 
1. Under Virginia law, a plaintiff must prove four elements to state a prima facie cause of action for common law conspiracy: 
a. A combination of two or more persons; 
b. To accomplish, by some concerted action; 
c. Some criminal or unlawful purpose or some lawful purpose by a 
criminal or unlawful means; and 
d. Resultant damage caused by the defendant’s acts committed in 
furtherance of the conspiracy.

Then there are notes:

2. As the Supreme Court recently commented: “The gist of the civil action of conspiracy is the damage caused by the acts committed in pursuance of the formed conspiracy and not the mere combination of two or more persons to accomplish an unlawful purpose or use an unlawful means.”

3. A plaintiff cannot maintain for common law conspiracy when the unlawful act underlying the claim does not allow for an award of damages.

That recent comment by the Virgina Supreme Court was in a 2007 Virginia decision in a case titled Almy v. Grisham.

So on Claim 3 I must ask, what real damages were incurred that satisfy point "d" of the conspiracy law, for there to be a punitive damage of 11 million dollars? Does the $7 in compensatory damages represent real injury? Or was it awarded only so that there could be a punitive damage? It seems that it was rewarded only so that the jury could find a way to punish all of the defendants merely for being racist.

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