AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Third Court of Appeals cut Alex Jones’ $45.2 million punitive award to $1.5 million Friday. The unanimous panel left his liability and $4.11 million in compensatory damages intact.

That distinction matters because several early headlines said the court reduced the entire roughly $50 million judgment to $1.5 million. The official 47-page opinion modified only the exemplary damages, the term Texas uses for punitive damages.

With the compensatory awards still standing, damages in the Texas case now total approximately $5.61 million. The ruling also preserved prejudgment interest and attorney-fee sanctions imposed during the litigation.

Court left Jones’ liability intact

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis sued Jones and Free Speech Systems, the company behind Infowars. Their 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, was among the 20 children and six educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

Jones spent years promoting false claims that the shooting was staged or had not happened. His broadcasts helped fuel harassment against grieving families who were accused of participating in a government conspiracy.

The trial court entered a default judgment on liability after finding that Jones and his company repeatedly failed to comply with discovery orders. A jury then heard evidence about causation and damages in 2022.

Jones argued on appeal that the default judgment violated his rights under the First Amendment and the Texas Constitution. The appellate panel rejected that argument and upheld the discovery sanctions.

The court found that the sanctions addressed Jones’ conduct during the litigation, not the content of his speech. It also noted that the parents still had to prove Jones’ actions caused them harm before the jury could award damages.

Jury awarded nearly $50 million

The jury awarded Heslin $110,000 in compensatory damages for defamation. It awarded each parent another $2 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Those compensatory awards totaled $4.11 million. The jury also imposed $45.2 million in exemplary damages against Jones and Free Speech Systems, bringing the original damages award to $49.31 million before interest and fees.

The trial court entered a final judgment awarding Heslin $26.81 million and Lewis $22.5 million. It added more than $607,000 in prejudgment interest.

The appeals court upheld the compensatory damages. It rejected Jones’ challenges to the intentional infliction of emotional distress claims, the evidence connecting his conduct to the parents’ suffering and the trial court’s handling of the damages proceedings.

Why the punitive award was capped

Texas law generally limits exemplary damages. Plaintiffs can exceed that limit when they plead and prove that a defendant knowingly or intentionally committed one of the crimes specifically listed in the statute.

Heslin and Lewis did not invoke one of those exceptions before the trial. More than a month after the jury returned its verdict, they asked to amend their lawsuit to allege conduct involving injury to a disabled person.

Their attorneys argued that Jones intentionally caused additional emotional injury to parents already suffering from severe emotional disturbance. The trial court allowed the amendment and entered the larger punitive award.

The appellate panel found that decision unfairly introduced a new legal theory after the jury had completed its work. The parents had not asked the jury to make the specific findings required to bypass the damages cap.

Jones and his company also lost the opportunity to respond to that theory with different evidence or trial strategy. The appellate court therefore struck the post-verdict amendment and applied the statutory limit.

The panel reduced the exemplary damages to $750,000 for Heslin and $750,000 for Lewis. It then affirmed the remainder of the judgment.

Jones still owes more than $1.5 million

The ruling gives Jones a substantial reduction, but it does not reduce his total Texas liability to $1.5 million. The compensatory damages remain approximately $4.11 million, bringing the revised damages award to about $5.61 million.

The appeals court also declined to recalculate the prejudgment interest. It upheld attorney-fee sanctions tied to Jones’ discovery conduct, including awards that exceeded $900,000 across several plaintiffs.

The exact amount Jones and Free Speech Systems must ultimately pay could depend on additional proceedings and collection efforts. Either side may ask the appellate court to reconsider the decision or seek review from the Texas Supreme Court.

Connecticut judgment remains unaffected

Friday’s ruling applies only to the case Heslin and Lewis filed in Texas. It does not disturb the separate billion-dollar judgment that other Sandy Hook families obtained against Jones in Connecticut.

A Connecticut appellate court previously removed $150 million from that award while preserving the central findings against Jones, as USA Herald reported in 2024. The remaining judgment still exceeds $1 billion.

Jones later asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Connecticut judgment. The justices refused to hear his appeal in October 2025.

Friday’s decision represents a major reduction in the Texas punitive award. It does not erase Jones’ liability, reverse the jury’s compensatory awards or undo the separate Connecticut judgment that continues to threaten his remaining assets.