Fox's Ablow: Erin Andrews Could “Make The Same Amount” Of Money If She “Let Herself Be Seen Naked” As She Won In Unauthorized Video Lawsuit

Keith Ablow: “I Wouldn't Advise It,” But “This Probably Simply Makes Her Whole”

From the March 8 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

Video file

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): Meanwhile, sports anchor Erin Andrews scored a massive victory in court yesterday in the form of a huge cash payout. A jury awarded her fifty-five million dollars in damages for videos taken by a peeping Tom at a Nashville Marriott. So was the judgment fair or did she get too much? Was it excessive?

[...]

DOOCY: What do you think about the fifty-five million?

ARTHUR AIDALA: Ridiculous, ridiculous --

DOOCY: Really?

AIDALA: Yes. Just way too much. That's multi-generational wealth. If this is under a certain part of the tax code it's tax-free money. She gets handed a check, I mean okay, a lawyer is going to get a nice hunk of that, but let's just say she wind up with forty million dollars in one lump sum payment. Take the emotion out of it. Legally speaking, the jury is supposed to look at what her damages are. And her financial damages, her career has skyrocketed since that happened. Her dollars and cents have gone up, her earning capacity, I believe she's the co-host of Geraldo's Dancing With The Stars. So she's making more money now than she was than. That, and who pays for it, Steve? We do. It's our insurance rates that  go up. Five million dollars, that's a different number. But fifty-five million dollars? For a hotel, they were supposed to foresee that the guy they put next to her room was going to drill a hole in and look through it. Wrong verdict. Too high. Too high. 

[...]

KEITH ABLOW: Listen, it is an appropriate way achieve social policy to hand out verdicts that are symbolic, that are representational. When you stay at a hotel, if you can be assured of anything, it ought to be that when you close the door you have your privacy. And listen, I can't crawl inside this woman's mind. I can imagine that every time she does an interview, she has to think, well, this person has seen me naked? 

AIDALA: But Keith, it has to be foreseeable --

ABLOW: Seen tens of millions of times online. 

AIDALA: The damage has to be foreseeable to the hotel. So if the person before them came in and said the water is too hot, it's scalding, it's going to burn me and then the next person comes in and gets burned, that's different.

DOOCY: The hotel made a mistake in allowing him next to her.

AIDALA: Placing him next to her.

DOOCY: The hotel, I believe it was one of the owners, also at a critical point in the proceedings, wasn't he out to dinner and he showed the video to some bartender? That was about the time -- 

AIDALA: I'm not saying --

ABLOW: Steve, here's something to consider. If a very famous woman decided, and I wouldn't advise it, to let herself be seen naked for 60 seconds by each spectator who wanted to in a hotel room, I think she could probably charge 1,500 bucks per 60 seconds. This probably simply makes her whole. If she wanted to spend her life doing that, she could make the same amount in the next ten years.

AIDALA: I have no problem with the verdict. I have no problem with her getting money. It's the amount no, it's the amount. 

[...]

AIDALA: It will, well there's no way the appellate court is going to hold up fifty-five million dollars. A father who just got killed in New York with two kids got six million from the city. It was the city's liability. So you have to raise two kids, you get six million. Erin Andrews, god bless her, is make -- she's already making a ton of money. She's going to get fifty-five million -- it messes up the system. 

Related:

Jury Awards Sportscaster Erin Andrews $55 Million in Unauthorized Naked Video Suit

Previously:

Fox News Doctor: Gender Equality Means Men Can Now Hit Women

Fox's Keith Ablow: “It's Tougher For A Woman To Work The Crowd” Than Men In Politics

Fox's Keith Ablow: “Men Should Be Able To Veto Women's Abortions”