Off-duty actions of public figures in general/Shirvell/Armstrong case in particular

Great Debates
41

Age and being enrolled in college have nothing to do with it.

Your statement seems to suggest that there’s some sort of a sliding scale, and that we should weigh the degree of fame and notoriety each person has in order to gauge whether the intrusion to privacy suffered is acceptable.

That’s actually not what the law says, though.

In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 US 323 (1974), the Supreme Court recognized two types of public figures. In discussing whether a criminla defense lawyer was a public figure, they said:

This second category is known as a “limited purpose public figure.”

They continued:

The Supreme Court has adopted a three-part test to assess if a particular figure is a “limited purpose” public figure for purposes of defamation and invasion of privacy:

[ul]
[li]The controversy at issue must be public both in the sense that people are discussing it and people other than the immediate participants in the controversy are likely to feel the impact of its resolution[/li][li]The presumed “limited purpose public figure” must have more than a trivial or tangential role in the controversy[/li][li]The alleged defamation or invasion of privacy must be germane to the purported public figure’s role and participation in the controversy[/li][/ul]

I fully admit I haven’t waded through the complete mass of idiocy on display in these blogs and interviews, but from what I gather, Armstrong is an adult, the student body president, and something of a gay rights activist. That certainly makes him a limited purpose public figure for the issue of gay rights, which (again, I gather from the little reading I’ve done) is the controversy that Shirvell is concerned with.

So my comparison to Rove or Cheney is not completely accurate: they are public figures, with “pervasive fame or notoriety that he becomes a public figure for all purposes and in all contexts.” But Armstrong is a limited purpose public figure, one who has “voluntarily inject[ed] himself or is drawn into a particular public controversy.”

And as such, I don’t think he can complain.

Again, though, I welcome a more thorough analysis of facts, because I’d like the answer to be different.

I’m not a public figure at all.

Can’t agree, because he deserves the same protection under civil service laws that everyone else does. If he were a private sector employee, as his boss I’d fire his ass in a heartbeat, and I’d have armed security standing by when I did it. But you can’t point to anything here (that I know of) that allows him to be fired from a civil service job or forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

Again, I’d love to learn differently, because I think the guy is seriously unbalanced.

42

I completely disagree with this. He has devoted a globally accessible website devoted to tracking, defaming, and harassing a single, private individual and his acquaintances. That should be illegal as hell.

43

I don’t know civil law all that well, so I’m not familiar with a general tort of harrassment. What has to be proved to win such a claim?

Feel free to respond to my discussion about limited purpose public figures above.

44

I think the law hasn’t caught up with the technology in this area.

(Although I also don’t agree that this is a “private” individual.)

But, yes, we need legislation that reaches this kind of conduct.

45

It’s been a while since I dug deeply into defamation law, but it strikes me as intellectually plausible to set up a sliding scale on which to judge the relative “publicness” of a person.

You might be right. I haven’t looked up any of the relevant state statutes on harassment or defamation, but I’d be surprised if all of them were written in a way that required amendment in order to take into account online activities.

46

Not much to add - only that the whole situation is very strange. I am interested to see how it plays out (I know nothing about civil service rights, or lack of them, in Michigan).

And wow. I have never seen a man with such an obvious craving for cock in my life.

47

The closeted AAG hasn’t done anything illegal, just stupid, weird, and obsessive.

MI has no cyber-bullying laws.

I don’t know whether or not a court would grant a restraining order to Armstrong, but I think I’d certainly try it.

I wish Cox had the, well, balls, to tell Shirvell to stop, and then damn the consequences, because Shirvell is putting the AG office in a very bad light.

48

Armstrong is a limited purpose public figure when he gets involved in gay advocacy, maybe, but is he a limited purpose public figure by virtue of being student body president? And the potentially defamatory statements go beyond the subject of Armstrong’s actions as either gay rights advocate or Student Body President. And his targets sometimes aren’t even Armstrong.

For instance, he says David Oltean (the younger brother of John Oltean, one of Armstrong’s friends and colleagues) "outright foams at the mouth with hatred for law enforcement and flagrantly breaks the law.. . .Sources familiar with the Olteans describe Patricia Oltean’s relationship with her sons as “bizarre” and “weird. . . .what mother with good judgment takes her teenage son gambling on a Friday night? I guess the answer is the same type of mother who obviously condones her underage son’s possession of an illegal fake ID!. [David Oltean] harbors some racist resentments against Native Americans and African Americans.. . .It seems that in the wealthy and privileged country-club-like society from which Chris Armstrong and John and David Oltean come from Native Americans and other racial minorities are to be mocked and treated like dirt under their shoes.”

Even if Armstrong is a limited purpose public figure, David Oltean isn’t.

49

Bricker, please see post #39.

50

Anyone else kinda get the impression that somehow, somewhere, sometime Armstrong rebuffed an advance by Shirvell and that this is what motivates this truly bizarre behavior?

51

Agreed. It just hasn’t actually been done.

I am open to the possibility, but for that claim to be made, someone would have to offer up the law they claim is being violated and then we can look at the conduct at issue to see if it applies.

52

Well, golly. I’m not a lawyer, but off the top of my head I would say that to win a claim in a harrassment suit, that harrassment would have to be proven.

What the hell are we quibbling about? This Armstrong fella is a private citizen, not even old enough to drink legally yet, and this other guy, a clearly obsessed adult, is publicly harrassing him for no reason other than he can’t get a date with him … I mean because he’s pressing for a homosexual agenda for non-gay … um … people, who don’t … um … actually I have no fucking idea why Shirvell is harrassing him but he clearly is.
But far be it from me to keep you from play legal devil’s advocate to all us ignorant non-lawyer Dopers.

53

I doubt it. That seems as though it would be a discretionary matter, not a punishment. And frankly, I like the AG’s office chances at an administration grievance hearing if he were to complain at being so limited.

Agreed.

54

:rolleyes:

I feel harassed by your post, then.

Look, you must understand that you can’t walk into a court somewhere and say, “This is harassment, proven so because… uh… I say it’s harassment.” The First Amendment protects the rights of people to say stuff. But it doesn’t protect all speech and it doesn’t protect all conduct. That’s why we have laws and court cases, to define these sorts of things. I am a lawyer, yes, but a non-practicing former criminal law guy. I have no idea what the legal elements of the tort of harassment are, or if there even is such a tort in Michigan, but I know enough to know it can’t be analyzed by the Batty test (“It’s harassment, dude! Duh!”)

55

It depends on what your assertion is. If it’s mere outrage, then that’s fine.

But if you’re asserting that the law of the State of Michigan requires or permits the Department of the Attorney General to dismiss Shirvell or that Armstrong has a case against him, then Bricker’s questions are appropriate. Outrage isn’t enough to prove your point.

56

I don’t think Michigan has a tort of harassment. If the actions are tortuous, it would probably be under either defamation or intentional infliction of emotional distress, if Armstrong can show that he did suffer from emotional distress. There’s no doubt to me at least that the actions are outrageous and intentionally designed to cause emotional distress.

57

When I stand on your lawn with a sign that says you molest collies and I start a blog accusing you of being a sexual deviant and a neo-nazi, and I post your picture all over the internet, calling you Satan’s little helper and claiming that you must be stopped … feel free to feel harrassed. I know I would … unless I was already a public figure, then I’d chalk up to typical potical fucknuttery.

Bottom line. Armstrong is not a public figure. He is being maligned publicly for reasons that only exist in his tormentor’s mind. Call it harrassment, libel, stalking, cyber-bullying, whatever you want … it pisses all over the concept of free speech.

58

But the question is whether or not in Michigan, you can sue somebody for that harassment.

59

Nah. The real question is whether you can win.

60

Most states if not all, however, have clearcut definitions meeting the criminal-law standard of specificity as to what constitutes harassment. Plus, in seeking the language of the Michigan harassment statute, I found this:

(Source.)

To me, it sounds like the above quite well describes Shirvell’s modus operandi. YMMV.