Looking at his picture, I’m surprised he made boyfriend status at all. He looks like your stereotypical Mom’s basement dweller.
Figure of speech. Offensive, stupid figure of speech, but it remains a figure of speech. Even if you didn’t know the background of the billboard, it’s pretty obvious he’s talking about an abortion, not a murder.
But in a defamation suit, would the burden of proof not fall on the plaintiff to show that the words must be construed this way?
The only people who could identify her are people who knew she was sleeping with him, and I don’t see how having people know you had an abortion could possibly be more mortifying than having people know you had sex with that guy.
So, a billboard that says he’s got a tiny penis and doesn’t use grammar correctly. I’m in, where do I donate.
What about her family, neighbours, co-workers, people at her local supermarket, etc who may know who she is, but not who she is sleeping with? What makes you assume that there aren’t people who are ok with her sleeping with him, but not having an abortion?
Exactly. From Wikipedia:
Seems to me that this guy could be fucked in a civil suit (assuming a reasonable person would be offended by having their abortion made public, and that the billboard made it clear who he was talking about - I think most juries would find both of these things obvious).
Which serves him right. You can’t just go putting personal stuff up on billboards… if he wanted to put up a big pro-life billboard, go for it, but leave her out of it.
Moreover, since the woman is not identified, the only people that may know who she is are the ones who knew who the man is from his picture and who he was dating – that is, their mutual acquaintances. And that same group would likely be well aware that the claim refers to the abortion, and not construe it as the claim that she killed a born child.
In other words, the very group that knows its her also knows the issue is abortion.
What is to “construe”?
The billboard did not say she had an abortion. It said she killed their baby.
A court, it seems to me, would need to decide whether abortion = killing babies (since, IIRC, the truth of a statement is a defense against defamation). Given that abortions are legal I think it is safe to say a court cannot find this to be the case under US law.
Given that it would seem to be defamation.
I don’t think it even needs to come to defamation or how to construe “killed my baby”. He publicly released offensive private non-newsworthy information. She can throw in a defamation too, if she wants, but the invasion of privacy claim is stronger, IMO.
How would those people know that billboard refers to her? There is no identifying information except for a picture of him.
So, your premise in this imperfect world is that you should never do something that might have consequences that will result in someone else besides yourself making decisions that you might not like.
Okay.
Well, if she had chosen to NOT have sex with him or after the sex NOT CHOSEN to have an abortion the guy wouldn’t have likely got pissed about it and put up a billboard declaring her actions to the world (which she probably really doesnt like).
If unpleasant consequences due to CHOICES are good for the goose, they are good for the gander too.
Though, I do think he screwed the pooch by his word choice “killing the baby”. Like others have said, thats whats most likely to get in hot water legally.
This is the grey area, I think (and really the only one as far as I can see it). Can you get away with telling private information about yourself if it also exposes private information about someone else?
For example - what if she put up the billboard, as a pro-choice statement. Something like - Now I can live my life to it’s fullest and have children when I’m ready. Would that violate his privacy by releasing his (probable) involvement in procuring said abortion? Much more subtle than this case, IMO.
A lot of people say abortion is murder. They’re wrong, but I don’t think a court is going to find that it’s defamation: it’s also a comment about a political issue, and if you rule that it’s defamation, that gets restricted. If the guy can be sued for disclosing private facts, then I hope she sues and wins. But I don’t think any court is going to say he defamed her by calling her a murderer. That argument runs headlong into a freedom of speech issue, and in context he was obviously talking about abortion.
Maybe she sued for the tort of public disclosure of private facts. In other words, your operating assumption that “one’s right to privacy does not extend to preventing others from telling people things you’d rather not be revealed” is in error.
ETA: I see I’ve been beaten to raising this point.
The plot thickens. Here it says she didn’t have an abortion but they are still arguing if that matters or not.
In this article they mention Westboro Baptist Church and how unpopular hateful speech is still protected. I don’t recall WBC calling out specific people who aren’t already in the news though.
Has no one noticed that the tweet link appears to show his twitter username as ‘proud pagan?’
@prdpgn from link upthread…
Since when does what “a lot of people” think matter for defamation? How many is enough for it to not be defamation?
Used to be a time when people thought black people were “lesser” than white people (still some of them around).
Does that mean you cannot defame a black person because some people think they are lesser than white people?
Boy howdy, ain’t that the truth!
Interesting. Where do modern Pagans generally stand on the abortion issue re right to life vs choice?