Tort tort baby

I probably wasn't going to go see "The Interview," the apparently shelved movie in which Seth Rogen and James Franco go all Bill and Ted, or Day of the Jackal, or something, on Kim Jong Un.

Can't see it now, though. And while Kim Jong Un might be part of the issue, the larger issue is closer to home, as attorney Kurt Schlichter points out:

If some pack of scumbags walked into a movie theater showing The Interview and opened fire, Sony and the theater companies would get sued. There’s no question about that – the Aurora theater chain where that psycho decided to start shooting is getting sued by the victims’ heirs as we speak. And, under our ridiculous tort system, the theater will lose, whether it prevails in court or not. Defense lawyers like me are not cheap.

Sony is a business; its duty isn’t to fight for our principles but to preserve and expand shareholder value. We veterans all swore to die, if necessary, to defend our Constitution, but Sony didn’t. It’s easy for us to say to Sony, “Hey, let’s you and him fight,” when it’s neither our money nor our personal safety on the line. 

Incentives matter. And given the wounds that Sony has suffered in recent weeks, the last thing it would want to do is take a chance.