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Rudy Giuliani has been sued. The plaintiffs are asking for S1.3 billion in compensation.
He doesn't have anything like that much money. His net worth is estimated to be $45 million.
Why are they asking for such a large amount, which they could not possibly ever receive? What is the legal thinking behind it? What is the strategy? $45 million is the maximum they could ever recover, so why not ask for that?
If you owe me $130 for unpaid wages, I sue for $130. If you wrote off my $130,000 car I sue for $130,000. If you burnt down my $130 million building, I sue for $130 million. If you did (in my estimate) $1.3 billion damage to my reputation I sue for $1.3 billion. Of course, I will have to prove that the damage was suffered - some damages are easier to prove than others.
Whether the defendant can pay it is irrelevant to the suit.
Of course, if there is a judgement that is more than the defendant’s net worth then any excess is “wasted”. At least commercially. However, commercial return is only one factor involved in deciding to launch a suit. Others include:
It seems that $1.3bn is not a completely unreasonable amount of damages. And in the USA, there is no penalty for asking for more than you actually expect to get. And if they figured that Giuliani has $45 million, sued for it and got awarded half, they would be kicking themselves. There would also be hope that they could take the court result and go after the $200 million that Trump apparently collected claiming it was for election lawsuits.
In Germany, there is a penalty for huge damage requests. The court will decide first what amount of money the case is about (Dominion: We want $1.3bn. Giuliani: I'll pay you one dollar. Judge: We are arguing about $1,299,999,999). That decides the cost the court will charge, and what the lawyers will charge. The problem is that if Giuliani is ordered to be $130mil, that would be 10% of what is asked for, so he'd pay 10% of both sides' lawyers court, and 10% of the court cost, and Dominion would have to pay 90%. So there you use a realistic number, otherwise you can "win" the case and still end up out of pocket. So the same case in Germany, they would have asked for less.
Suppose they choose to only sue for $45 million, even though they were pretty sure they could have proved $1.3 billion in damages. Suppose they win and are awarded the full $45 million. Then when, judgment in hand, they subpoena information about his assets, suppose it turns out he has another $500 million socked away that nobody knew about. Or, suppose that between now and then, Giuliani's rich uncle dies and leaves him $800 million in his will.
Neither possibility may be very likely, but if either should happen, the plaintiffs would really be kicking themselves that they didn't sue for more.
There may not be very many strong reasons to demand vastly more than they think the defendant has, but there are even fewer reasons not to.
It's not just Guliani who was sued, it Dominion also sued Ms. Powell. Those two were known as the main "Kraken handlers" and both alleged that Dominion would have faked the election among other things. They had neither proof for this, nor could they provide any solid evidence for this when ordered by courts. Or to quote Judge Brann:
Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence.
In their suits against Ms Powell and Guliani, Dominion enumerates every part of the sum and how they get to it. Among others, they want compensation for:
They possibly hope that the end result will give two messages:
