Anyone with more than zero knowledge of defamation law could see from the start that Vic taking this to court was a stupid idea. I guess Funimation took that in itself as a sign that Vic didn't want to settle this like gentleman, he wanted some real gangster shit.
I'm seeing the stuff we discussed on this forum here, too, looks like they put in everything they could here. Like, I know we brought up the question of how Funimation could have vicarious liability when their VAs aren't employees or acting on behalf of Funimation in any way, and sure enough:
6. Defendant is not liable to Plaintiff for allegedly defamatory made by third-parties, including any allegedly defamatory statements made by any other defendants sued in this lawsuit because those other defendants were not agents or employees of Defendant and therefore were not
acting within the course and scope of any agency or employment.
and also everything Greg Doucette pointed out:
7. Defendant is not liable to Plaintiff because the allegedly defamatory statements
were not made with actual malice.
8. Defendant is not liable to Plaintiff because any alleged defamatory statements were
statements of opinion.
9. Defendants is not liable to Plaintiff because Plaintiff does not identify a valid
contract that was the subject of any alleged interference.
For all the stuff mentioning why there's legal rules stating that the exemplary damage here should be capped or eliminated, that's where the real money would be in this case, I believe. Exemplary / punitive damages are money rewarded beyond the actual measured damages done to the plaintiff, solely to punish. America's generally pretty big on this as far as I know, although there are particular states you go to. The idea of bringing Funimation into this was probably to hit them with punitive damages and get a big payout.
