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WBC ordered to pay over $11 million for their protests
fightinfilipino
Angry as Hell#BLMRegistered User regular
Angry as Hell#BLMRegistered User regular
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/31/funeral.protests.ap/index.html
i never expected this. the Westboro Baptists do some despicable things, but their protests (and their legal arugments) have all managed so far to fit them within their first amendment rights.
i personally agree with the ruling in this case, but i know there are a lot of people who don't like the idea of being legally liable for speech, no matter how "offensive" it is. what are everyone's takes on this?
BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) -- A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals in the belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.
U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett noted the size of the award for compensating damages "far exceeds the net worth of the defendants," according to financial statements filed with the court.
i never expected this. the Westboro Baptists do some despicable things, but their protests (and their legal arugments) have all managed so far to fit them within their first amendment rights.
i personally agree with the ruling in this case, but i know there are a lot of people who don't like the idea of being legally liable for speech, no matter how "offensive" it is. what are everyone's takes on this?
fightinfilipino on
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I assume Compensation is clearly paid to the plaintiff, who gets the punitive cash? The government?
Protesters should ,rightly so, get the fuck out.
The plaintiff as well. Which is the best solution.
It does, however, set precedence. WBC has been prolific in their lawsuit filing whenever someone maligns them, and this turns the tables. If enough families sue, WBC will be tied up legally for years, and it will keep them off the streets.
:x
They got what they deserved.
See, and the italicized part is where I think the real issue lies. The problem is that burials are, in general, going to occur in outdoor areas, and semi-public ones at that. This does not make them public events. This, I think, is where the WBC is utterly wrong...they think simply because something is occurring outside it's public. Not so.
Also, free speech is not absolute. There are the obvious examples that everybody knows: maliciously causing panic, fighting words, slander, etc. I think whether or not quasi-political speech which intrudes on private events and causes undue (and, IMO, malicous) emotional distress to a grieving party should be covered is an interesting one. Apparently this jury decided that it wasn't.
Which I wholeheartedly support. If you honestly believe our tolerance of the homosexuals is going to bring about the end times, I guess that's cool...you can go any day of the week and picket courthouses, legislatures, the White House, hell go picket that cool gay bar down the street. But seriously, stay the fuck away from people's funerals.
Let's say they don't overturn it, and the rights of the WBC to protest are upheld, as they should be. So, what recourse do the families have? Very simple: they go to their state legislatures, and request legislation restricting protests within a certain distance of a funeral. 40 states already have legislation doing so (though, many of them are limited to only military funerals, which I think is bullshit). It's a legal remedy that falls under a "reasonable time, place, and manner" restriction allowable based on precedent. If they break those laws, they should be arrested and punished according to them; I just don't think this sort of civil precedent is a good one, and I think it risks further eroding our already restricted right to protest.
You could make a very good argument to the effect that they were protesting with the intent to cause the family undue emotional distress.
I think it's good people can be punished for that, all things considered.
There's also the fact that Falwell was a public person and some dead soldier isn't.
It's not like these people are without remedy; the WBC was taking advantage of a loophole in the law that has since been closed in most places. I don't think it's necessary to strike this sort of a blow to free speech rights.
While I don't want the Minuteman Project to get $11 million for disrupting a speech, it feels wrong that some protesters get away with being dicks at inappropriate times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SGJEaWxto0
First, fuck O'Reilly. We're talking about a man who pushed Fox to sue over a book that made fun of him. He doesn't get to bitch about disruptions.
Second, there's a difference between what happened at Columbia and what the WBC does. Again, it all factors down to public person or not.
First off, he'd have to prove that they intentionally inflicted distress. Somehow, I doubt he'd succeed.
I think there were anti-war protests at funerals too. And while I am in anti-war camp, protesting at a funeral is just completely without class. If the parents of those soldiers had sued, I'd have agreed with them too. As far as this being a dangerous precedent, we're already not allowed to be anywhere near G8 meetings, or even attend peacefully a Bush rally if we aren't wearing our "I
Not only that, but the WBC protesters allude to the gay being the soldier's fault and the death is just punishment. I wonder if defamation of character was put out there or not.
Like I said, though, I think that there is a more than adequate remedy for this problem in the future, and I think the damage done to free speech rights by finding for the plaintiffs far outweighs the damage done to a few families by their protests.
...
That's not how I meant it. Unless the judge has said specifically that this a punishment for being anti-gay, I don't think this is a problem. This is a punishment for being a dickhole at a private funeral. I already said that I support this same kind of treatment for protesters of any kind at a funeral, which is what those 40 state laws you mentioned do.
Bah. I still say fuck those guys.
Actually, if for whatever reason their state hasn't or won't pass such laws, then it does kind of leave them without remedy. Which is to say that the families of soldiers in 10 states are pretty much fucked (unless they get buried at a national cemetery, since apparently there's a federal law covering those).
This is one of those times where, quite honestly, it's only the threat of prison that would keep me from committing an otherwise horrendous crime. I've been hit by IEDs, and lost friends to IEDs, so I'd have absolutely zero problem taking that little twat's life. So take that, everybody who says that such things can't act as a deterrent to crime.
Oh, and I know this makes me a bad person. And I don't care.
You're still a better person than that douche. Hells, I don't even know what an IED looks like, and I would set one off under him in a second.