This is complicated! Yes, America is very different to the rest of the western democracies, in that it's typical that the loser pays attorneys' fees in civil cases in other countries, but this is not true in the US. So you can bankrupt someone by filing many lawsuits against them, even if you lose them all, assuming you had more money than them to start with.

However! That is totally not what happened here. "Loser pays" would not help because Thiel/etc won the case, I think rightly so. A case can't be frivolous if you win a huge judgement.

So I agree with you that there doesn't seem to be anything dramatically concerning about this case, though I'd still argue that there's a gigantic "money wins" problem in the US due to lack of "loser pays" rules.

> Is that how the legal system works in America? Money wins?

Ask any small company dealing with a giant patent troll.

Except the difference here is that Gawker is a multimillion dollar corporate entity with access to the same tier of representation as Hogan.

This isn't some David vs Goliath story.

That's true, but it doesn't counter the point.

> Is that how the legal system works in America? Money wins?

It certainly appears so, yes.