But Hello! was still held to have breached the privacy of the couple and the damages award granted to them was maintained.
Damages have been set intentionally low — at "a token €500 per user" — but given there are now 25,000 participants if the case prevails and those full damages are granted that's currently a €12.5 million toll for Facebook.
People unused to the wonders of British libel might take such palpable damage for granted, of course.
In August, the United States District Court for the Eastern District, in Richmond, Va., dealt RIM a stunning blow, ordering the company to pay NTP, which sued RIM for patent infringement, $53.7 million in damages and granting an injunction to prevent RIM from making, selling or servicing the devices in the United States.
This means that the awards usually fall short of the million-dollar judgments common in the United States, where a combination of compensatory and punitive damages is often granted.
The award, to Betty Bullock, 64, of Newport Beach, Calif., was by far the largest punitive damage amount ever granted an individual plaintiff in a smoking case.
Mr Sarkozy sued for a symbolic €1 in damages, which the court granted.
Autism may stem from some deficit in information processing or simply from inability to switch attention; no one can be sure which of the faculties we take for granted is damaged.
"This creates a precedent for a number of serious issues, such as the illegality of the suspension of a contract due to illness, and the possibility to be granted moral damage," Fifpro's legal counsel Alexandra Gómez said in a statement.
