In a stunning last-minute change of strategy, the new attorney representing Alex Jones in a lawsuit brought by a Sandy Hook shooting victim's mother said Wednesday that he will seek to have the case dismissed solely on the legal grounds that a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress cannot be brought by someone who was never named by Jones, even if Jones knew what he was saying was not true.

"This is a legal case that’s far bigger than Alex Jones, and our goal is to change the way this case is handled so that the legal case is the focus," attorney Robert Barnes told the American-Statesman outside the Travis County courtroom of state District Judge Scott Jenkins, asserting that the novel questions raised by the case and the way those questions are now cleanly framed make it ripe for appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"They love pure questions of law, and this a hot topic," Barnes said. "This is the case that’s going to decide the future of the free press."

The issue, unsettled in Texas law, is whether a member of a group or class of people — in this case the parent of a child killed in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., school shooting that Jones on his radio and internet platform InfoWars sometimes characterized as a hoax — can sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress, even if that person was never individually identified in Jones' coverage. Barnes is presenting it as a First Amendment and press freedom case, he said, because Jones is operating as a member of the press, which under Texas law includes anyone who shares information with the public for money.

"If we lose this case at the Supreme Court, the First Amendment is dead letter law for large numbers of the independent press in this country," inviting lawsuits by people who were offended by media coverage even if they were never named in the coverage, Barnes said.

"That’s why it’s so critical, that’s why I need it decided in the high plains of the law and not mired in the swamp of the facts," Barnes said.

Barnes' shocker, at a hearing in Jenkins' courtroom that was empty but for the participants and a single observer, caught Jenkins and parent Scarlett Lewis' counsel by surprise.

"It's kind of an O. Henry ending," said a clearly startled Jenkins.

"It's a legal argument that's very, very interesting," Jenkins said.

Mark Bankston, representing Lewis, said he does not think this is a First Amendment case or that press freedom is the least bit at risk in the outcome.

Bankston said that while Jones and others with InfoWars never mentioned Lewis by name in writing and talking about the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School, "the deeper question is do they know that Scarlett exists, do they know who she is and why she’s emotionally vulnerable, and did they take steps to do stuff that they knew would hurt her."

Bankston, who is representing Sandy Hook parents in two other lawsuits brought in Jones' hometown of Austin that have survived Jones' attempt to have them dismissed, said the answer is yes on all counts and that Jones and InfoWars "are legally liable to any Sandy Hook parent."

Jones' legal team was always going to make the argument that Lewis could not bring an emotional distress claim when she was never identified by name. Unlike other Sandy Hook cases in Texas and Connecticut, Lewis is not also suing for defamation.

But not until midway through Wednesday's hearing did Barnes reveal that that would now be their only argument at a May hearing and that Bankston would no longer have to demonstrate that Jones made intentionally false statements, a case that Bankston had been furiously working on, including taking a three-hour deposition from Jones on March 14 in Austin, which was released Friday. Wednesday's hearing was called to determine what, if any, sanctions Jenkins should impose on Jones' attorneys for not providing Bankston a trove of documents required under discovery in a timely fashion.

But, with Wednesday's turn of events, Bankston's co-counsel Kyle Farrar said, "We're not going to have to prove what was in his mind, what he knew, when he knew it and how he knew it. The only issue now is was our plaintiff in the zone of injury, was his conduct such that our client could be injured."

Jenkins was pleased by the simplification of the case but asked Barnes why the last-minute change of course and when he took command of the case.

"Yesterday," said Barnes, a Los Angeles attorney, explaining that's when his legal authorization to appear before a Travis County judge came through. However, Barnes, who was named chief legal counsel for InfoWars last month and has been making regular appearances with Jones on Infowars, said he and his team already had devoted more than 400 hours to the case.

Barnes also agreed to pay Bankston $8,100 out of his own pocket to cover the hours Bankston has spent preparing for an argument he no longer has to make. Jenkins said that was a first in his experience.