Fourteen months after St. Luke’s filed a defamation lawsuit against Ammon Bundy and another far-right activist, the case has reached a conclusion.

The 12 jurors deciding damages in the civil action filed back into the courtroom early Monday evening to announce what Bundy, close associate Diego Rodriguez and their various entities would be ordered to pay the health system and other plaintiffs.

The verdict: a total of $26.5 million in compensatory damages and $25.8 million in punitive damages.

Compensatory damages are intended to compensate plaintiffs for losses experienced because of defendants’ actions and punitive damages are to punish defendants for their actions.

St. Luke’s attorney Erik Stidham told the jury on Friday that he thought $37 million would be the fairest number for compensatory damages and $16 million should be the minimum amount considered. He did not suggest an amount for punitive damages.

“My hope is that you will look at this and you will deter (Bundy) in a way that he hasn’t been deterred yet,” Stidham said in his closing statements.

Boise police arrest Ammon Bundy on a trespassing charge on March 12, 2022, at St. Luke’s hospital in Boise. Police body cam video Holland & Hart LLP

Bundy and Rodriguez led protests at the St. Luke’s hospitals in Meridian and downtown Boise in March 2022 over a child welfare case involving Rodriguez’s 10-month-old grandchild. The lawsuit named as defendants both men, Bundy’s People’s Rights Network, Bundy’s campaign for governor, and Rodriguez’s Freedom Man website and political action committee.

The suit claimed that the defendants posted multiple lies online about the hospital system, its employees and the reasons the baby was taken into custody.

A number of health professionals testified that they had treated the baby for severe malnutrition.

“In my opinion, if he had been allowed to go home with his parents and continue on the trajectory he was on, he would have died,” said Rachel Thomas, a St. Luke’s emergency room doctor who treated Rodriguez’s grandchild.

Stidham said the defendants, through videos and blog posts, spread lies that the hospital was working with the government to take children away from Christian families to be sexually abused and given to gay couples. He alleged that businesses and groups belonging to Bundy and Rodriguez were a “massive ugly machine built to make money and radicalize people.” He said lying about the welfare case was a way to get people to donate.

After Bundy, who was running for Idaho governor at the time, and Rodriguez repeatedly failed to appear in court or respond to a judge’s orders, they were found in default, meaning they essentially forfeited the case, leaving it to head to the damages portion.

In addition to St. Luke’s, the plaintiffs bringing the lawsuit included St. Luke’s CEO Chris Roth and two medical professionals who worked on the child, Dr. Natasha Erickson and nurse practitioner Tracy Jungman. All plaintiffs were awarded millions in damages by the jury.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article277544733.html