Juror Awards Father $2.9M In Funeral Protesters Case
I hope this breaks the motherfucker.
It’s more like 11 million when you factor in $2.9 mill for compensatory damages, $6 mill for invasion of privacy and another $2 mill for causing emotional distress.
Of course, you just know that the Phelpses will keep this tied up in appeals until Moshiach comes, so I doubt the plaintiff will ever see a dime of this money. But it’s still nice knowing there is at least one jury that won’t put up with Phred’s BS.
Robin
“During Wednesday’s deliberation, the jury asked the court for a copy of the Bible, but their request was denied.”
Thus preventing them from verifying whether Phelps’s signature slogan really was the second shortest verse, as one juror claimed to remember.
YES! YES! YES!!
While I realize there’s going to be folks who will say this is infringing on a person’s right to practice their religion, IMO it’s not. When you open your big mouth and pull the crap Phelps and his band of loonies have in the past, you deserve to get whatever punishment that’s handed out to you.
Actually, it’s infringing on his freedom of speech. As much as I enjoy the emotional rush of seeing Fred slapped down like this, ethically I can’t support the verdict, and hope that it’s overturned.
But I also hope the court costs of getting it overturned bankrupts that evil fuck.
Damn, I clicked on the thread in the hope that he’d been the latest ultra-social-conservative outed.
Yay for him getting fucked over, but boo for the whole curtailing of freedom of speech thing. I’m going to have to hope this gets overturned too… much as this specific case is lovely, in the whole it is not.
I was under the impression that this was a civil case, and as such was not about his FOS but more about his specific actions on a specific day. “You can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” is an accepted limitation on FOS. However, if you’re right, then I endorse the last sentence of your post.
I’m telling ya, Fred’s daughter has got Manson lamps from hell. I mean she’s got crazy shining out of those eyes that 400 cc’s of Thorazine couldn’t put out.
You know I’m as big a believer as freedom of speech as the next person, but in general, I like to think that if clinically insane people are harassing me, the law can do something about it.
I think that, hypothetically, if someone were to publicly celebrate the death of my son at his funeral, I would consider that far beyond the bounds of what the first amendment is intended to protect, and solidly within the boundaries of intentional infliction of distress. Some other place, some other time, spontaneous rather than planned, those would probably be reasonable expressions of their opinion. But at a funeral, the pain is so raw, so fresh in the minds of those who cared for the deceased, organizing a public display of joy near the funeral, even if not within direct view or hearing of the gravesite, seems more like a hot poker into the emotional cauldron experienced by those attending rather than an expression of the picketers’ point of view.
I don’t know the specifics of this case, but apparently the jury similarly found Westboro’s behavior beyond the pale.
I see many people defending Phelps’ Constitutionally protected freedom of speech, even knowing that our courts have seen fit to put some, specific limitations on it.
I see very few people (excepting Punoqllads above) questioning at what point an individual’s right to free speech infringes on another person’s emotional, physical, and financial integrity.
What Phelps did was calculated, completely intentional, and done with full and complete knowledge of the suffering he inflicted. I can’t think of another time in a person’s life guaranteed to be more painful than the funeral of their child. Had the father suffered a heart attack, a bout of clinical depression, or gone broke trying to protect himself and his family from this group of shrikes, I highly doubt a reasonable person would have been surprised.
I am delighted by the jury’s findings, and I hope every family visited by those ghouls files similar lawsuits against the Phelps family. Let Fred and his Hellish offspring spend their time in civil court answering to the law and to society. Aside from being awarded a handsomely deserved consequence, they’ll have less time to inflict misery on others.
What’s to out? Anyone that obsessed over homosexuality has definately given thought to what it may be like to make the beast with two backs and four balls before.
This is what I don’t understand and hope to get explained to me. I hate the Phelpses of course and I try to factor in the emotional repulsion I have towards them, but even when I do I’m with you: I just cannot see how screaming GOD HATES FAGS and waving those signs is what was meant by protection of free speech.
ETA- I’m going to start a GD thread to ask for clarification on this.
I’ve done so in other threads.
I’d like to ask the thread participants - if Phelps were to protest outside of your home, do you think that would be constitutionally protected?
How about if he were to protest outside of a school so obnoxiously that classes were disrupted? Is that constitutionally protected?
I’m delighted by the verdict, but am no fan of the thread title. If you’re really not into homophobia, using ‘takes it up the ass’ as a slur, one that’s implicitly against homosexuals (or women or even pegged straight guys), is sort of ironic.
Ditto, on both counts.
If the funeral was on private property, doesn’t the property owner have the right to decide what kind of speech can or can’t be used? Like a private company can fire an employee for making racist comments or badmouthing the company.
I’d hit it.
So would I. All day long.
Oh— you were talking metaphorically…
Interesting financial info from this article.
ETA: Anyone ever noticed that you’ve never seen a picture of Fred Phelps and Andy Kaufman together? And that Phelps only became internationally famous after Andy “died”?
Oh brother. :rolleyes: Ever hear the expression “Got reamed”? As in “Boy, I really got reamed by the IRS in that last audit.” Same thing. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, homophobic about it. You’re looking for offense where none exists.
The only sane way to interpret that sentence is that you meant it literally.