At Mar-a-Lago in late December, Donald Trump told a story
about his 82-year-old friend Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive billionaire who famously seized control of a bankrupt Marvel in the ’90s and later flipped it to Disney for $4 billion. In Trump’s version, Perlmutter went from “stone-cold broke to owning Disney,” only to walk away because of “woke Donald Duck,” a quip he trotted out in front of party guests including Sylvester Stallone.

The reality, of course, is a bit different. Perlmutter spent years stewing as chairman of Marvel, frustrated and marginalized by Disney. After he backed Nelson Peltz’s (first) failed proxy fight in 2023, Bob Iger swiftly shoved Perlmutter out, citing “redundancy” at Marvel, and denying the proxy fight had anything to do with it. No ideological crusade here—just another C-suite defenestration.

But Perlmutter’s Disney fight is only part of the story. You remember this battle, right? It dates back to the early days of the Marvel-Disney merger, when Perlmutter feuded with a Palm Beach neighbor, Toronto businessman Harold Peerenboom, over the management of some tennis courts. (I went deep into their dispute for The Hollywood Reporter.) The spat devolved into a years-long legal brawl, including secretive DNA tests, a battalion of high-priced lawyers, and accusations that Perlmutter was sending anonymous hate mail to Peerenboom’s neighbors accusing him of crimes. (Andrew Ross Sorkin also
chronicled the feud in The New York Times.) It turned out that Perlmutter wasn’t behind the letters; instead, it was a disgruntled ex-employee of Peerenboom’s. The ramifications of that twist have been explored in ceaseless court proceedings.

Now, more than a decade after it began, the Perlmutter-Peerenboom saga is heating up again. Trump’s pal is asking the Florida Supreme Court to let him seek punitive damages over what he claims was Peerenboom’s campaign to “terrorize” him, including leaking to the Times faulty DNA test results purporting to link him to the hate mail. The justices have agreed to hear Perlmutter’s petition. 

Why should this matter beyond the Palm Beach cocktail circuit? Because the justices will decide a crucial question: How much “gatekeeping” should Florida courts do before sending disputes like this to a jury? The underlying legal issue has implications that stretch far beyond petty billionaire feuds. Take defamation lawsuits. Under Supreme Court precedent,
plaintiffs in libel cases can only collect punitive damages if they show “actual malice.” But who decides whether actual malice has been shown? Judges? Or juries? At a time when media companies are facing an uptick in defamation suits, especially in red states like Florida, and given the country’s increasing distrust of the media, it’s not a stretch to conclude that juries will be far more sympathetic to a plaintiff than a judge would be. 

At the heart of the case is the clandestine theft of Perlmutter’s DNA during a
2013 deposition. Peerenboom suspected Perlmutter was behind anonymous mailings that accused him of murder and sexual abuse. William Douberley, a lawyer provided to Peerenboom by Chubb insurance, hatched a plan: Obtain Perlmutter’s genetic material, test it against DNA from the mailings, and—if it matched—leak the results. The goal, according to Douberley’s deposition: Get Perlmutter fired and shake Disney’s stock price.

It didn’t go as planned. Perlmutter’s DNA was indeed collected—he was handed fake exhibits, which were later retrieved by a crime scene technician—but the initial test didn’t produce a strong match. Allegedly, the DNA lab reran the analysis using a contaminated sample, which produced a supposed match—this time, to Perlmutter’s wife, Laura. That was enough to spark a new wave of litigation and a full-fledged P.R. campaign.

In Florida, lawsuits move at the pace of a judge’s discretion. This one was a slow burn, with years of discovery and legal maneuvering—until a twist emerged. Homeland Security intercepted a hate-mail kit—envelopes with preprinted addresses, latex gloves, etcetera—and traced it to David Smith, a former vice president at Peerenboom’s Canadian company. That should have been the end of it. But Peerenboom’s
attorneys weren’t satisfied and pressed forward regardless, alleging that the Perlmutters had conspired with Smith to disguise the true origin of the letters. Perlmutter responded by pushing counterclaims of invasion of privacy, defamation, abuse of process, and more. 

The case was cleared for trial, but Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled the evidence was too “ambiguous” to justify
punitive damages for Perlmutter. The justices saw only circumstantial evidence that Peerenboom’s camp had done anything more than aggressively investigate the hate mail. “Such evidence could never meet the clear and convincing standard at trial,” the opinion stated.

Now Perlmutter, who claims Peerenboom and
Douberley fabricated a fake DNA match, is asking the Florida Supreme Court to reinstate punitive damages, arguing that “clear and convincing” is overly strict and inconsistent with other Florida rulings. His lawyers laid it out in a March 10 filing: If stealing DNA, manipulating forensic results, and feeding bad science to the media in an effort to take down a
high-powered executive doesn’t meet the bar for punitive damages, they asked, what does?

Interestingly, the Perlmutter appeal cites two recent cases against CNN. I’ve
reported on Zachary Young, the Navy veteran who sued CNN for implying he’d been part of a “black market” helping Afghans flee from the Taliban. There, a judge didn’t apply the “clear and convincing” standard, and a jury ruled for Young. CNN ultimately settled for an undisclosed amount. 

Michael Black, a West Palm Beach heart surgeon, also sued CNN for its
reporting on infant mortality rates at his hospital. A judge greenlit this case for trial—but Florida’s Fourth District reversed the decision in 2023, ruling that Black hadn’t clearly and convincingly demonstrated actual malice. Black’s lawyer, Libby Locke, is closely watching the Perlmutter case, which may determine whether she gets to come back against CNN. She’s submitting an amicus brief arguing there shouldn’t be a “mini-trial” before the real trial—that juries, not judges,
should weigh evidence and credibility. 

Of course, that’s one perspective. The Florida Supreme Court will also hear from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is submitting its own amicus brief arguing for stricter judicial oversight. To them, this case is about tort reform. Obviously, the business community would like to see fewer personal injury cases.

This brings me to a key point: The availability of punitive damages fundamentally shapes the incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers and the settlement calculus for insurers. If judges take on a stricter gatekeeping role, it will likely disincentivize certain types of litigation. But if more cases make it to trial—especially in front of juries that may not be particularly sympathetic to media companies—we can expect to see a lot more cases filed. That this is all happening in a
case involving a man who once controlled Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Avengers, and who now believes he was terrorized? Just happenstance. A tale for a comic book, perhaps, as well as one for the courts.

Thanks Eriq, I’ll be back on Thursday evening. 

Matt