Supreme Court to hear case for former Six Flags Over Georgia investors

Posted | Contributed by Jeff

The Supreme Court will hear the case where $257 million in punitive damages was awarded to former investors by a lower court on the charge that Time Warner, the former owner, mismanaged the park to decrease its value. The court will decide if such a large amount is constitutional.

The case applies to the former investors of Six Flags Over Georgia, before Premier Parks (now Six Flags, Inc.) purchased the chain in 1998 from Time Warner. The investors charged that Time Warner mismanaged the park in order to decrease its value.

Related parks

Six Flags Over Georgia

Why would they want to decrease the park's value?

If I remember correctly from the original story (this thing has been dragging on for something like two years now), it was to cause the surrounding properties to decrease in value as well, so they could be easily bought. However, when the whole thing ended up being sold anyway to Premier, I guess that's where the investors either lost money or didn't get what they could have.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"From the global village... in the age of communication!"
Watch the grass grow!

So since it applies to Time Warner, SF Inc. should be fine, right? this won't have any affect on any future projects?
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Bomb Squad Technician

If you see me running, try and keep up!

Right, this is between AOL/Time Warner and the former investors of the Six Flags that no longer exists.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"From the global village... in the age of communication!"
Watch the grass grow!

Well, serves 'em right. Man, that would piss me off to.

How funny because I didn't even know that Time Warner no longer owns the Six Flags parks. ^u^;; Anyway, I think it's a little interesting that a company such as Time Warner would do that to the park and the surrounding areas in the first place.

The investors already recieved around 160 MILLION in an award from TIME-Warner! This secondary amount is to punish (punitive) T/W for what they did.

Odd that they are fighting since they have a deal with AOL to promote Six Flags...and that AOL ran promotions giving away free tickets to Premire Park locations..I thought they were buddies...

If the parks land value decreases, it has a ripple effect causing property around, normally within a 1000-2500 feet radius around th park, to decrease in value as well. Then they would offer those land owners a deal they couldn't refuse and goble up a crap load of land for expansion and/or future sale. Also another reason is to decrease the park's value and try to make a quick buck by selling it to Premiere Parks for more than what the land and park is really worth. Remeber AOL/Time Warner is the king of ripping poeple off and monopolies.
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I may be from IL, but i sure can't get enough of the FORCE. MF!!!

BB, T/W has no gripe with SF, or vice versa. It's the investors of the original park that are PO'd at T/W for their mismanagement. The general idea behind punitive damages is not to reimburse the investors (that's the $200M in compensatory, the extra money they would have had if the park had not suffered the alleged/proven mismanagment of T/W). The $257 is, as you said, punishment, meaning the finding was that the actions of T/W were either "grossly negligent" or, more likely, intentional.
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Son of Drop Zone - PKI CoasterCamp I Champions!!!

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