The Court did not order the soldier’s family to pay any defense legal fees. “If a judgment is reversed, costs are taxed against the appellee.” Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 39(a)(3). “Costs” are basically to cover the court reporter’s fees to prepare the transcript on appeal and the costs of copying the papers incident to the appeal. The rule is pretty much automatic–if you lose on appeal, you pay the hard costs of the appeal. The actual defense “legal fees” in this case were likely pushing high 6 figures to maybe 7 figures. $16,000 in the context of this litigation is, frankly, chump change.
Also, the issue is really whether the civil justice system should compensate people for non-economic and non-physical personal injuries at all. I personally believe that it should, but the the tort-reform movement has been systematically–and effectively–attacking a person’s ability to recover non-economic damages for the last 20 or so years. Part of that attack has been through courts taking decisions like this one from juries by ruling that the evidence is “insufficient” to support claims for emotional damages.
Here, the three judge appellate panel included Judges King (Clinton Appointee), Duncan (Bush Appointee), and Shedd (Bush Appointee). King, who wrote the majority opinion, based the reversal on the first amendment. But Shedd, who agreed with the reversal in a concurrence, would not have reached the constitutional question at all because the soldier’s family did not even “state a claim” for intentional infliction of emotional distress or invasion of privacy. King wrote in his concurrence that no reasonable juror could conclude that the conduct here was “extreme and outrageous” enough to justify compensating the family for their emotional distress even if there were no first amendment protections in play. If you are a big fan of tort reform, you should be clapping your hands and applauding this decision because it is just one more in a long line of them that support the idea that an injury to a person’s dignity is not worthy of protection in our civil justice system.
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”[/quote]
It’s all about having the proper time and place, but you know that don’t you?
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”[/quote]
It’s all about having the proper time and place, but you know that don’t you?[/quote]
When those assclowns target any funeral with this shit, it’s wrong. Just bothers me a bit that when they do it at the funeral of a homosexual, people don’t see it as equally immoral.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”[/quote]
It’s all about having the proper time and place, but you know that don’t you?[/quote]
When those assclowns target any funeral with this shit, it’s wrong. Just bothers me a bit that when they do it at the funeral of a homosexual, people don’t see it as equally immoral.[/quote]
You don’t suppose that it might have something to do with the honor of one who has given his life for his country vs. someone’s sexual preference?
Perspective. You might need some, buddy.
[/quote]
Perspective is a good word. Having this happen to soldiers (read: straight folk) as it did seems to give the rest of that majority “perspective” on what it might be like to have hateful protesters show up at a time reserved for greiving.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”[/quote]
It’s all about having the proper time and place, but you know that don’t you?[/quote]
When those assclowns target any funeral with this shit, it’s wrong. Just bothers me a bit that when they do it at the funeral of a homosexual, people don’t see it as equally immoral.[/quote]
You don’t suppose that it might have something to do with the honor of one who has given his life for his country vs. someone’s sexual preference?
Perspective. You might need some, buddy.
[/quote]
Perspective is a good word. Having this happen to soldiers (read: straight folk) as it did seems to give the rest of that majority “perspective” on what it might be like to have hateful protesters show up at a time reserved for greiving.
Personal attacks. Not much need for them, tiger.
[/quote]
Not all of those in the military are straight, ask Eric Massa.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”[/quote]
It’s all about having the proper time and place, but you know that don’t you?[/quote]
When those assclowns target any funeral with this shit, it’s wrong. Just bothers me a bit that when they do it at the funeral of a homosexual, people don’t see it as equally immoral.[/quote]
You don’t suppose that it might have something to do with the honor of one who has given his life for his country vs. someone’s sexual preference?
Perspective. You might need some, buddy.
[/quote]
Perspective is a good word. Having this happen to soldiers (read: straight folk) as it did seems to give the rest of that majority “perspective” on what it might be like to have hateful protesters show up at a time reserved for greiving.
Personal attacks. Not much need for them, tiger.
[/quote]
Not all of those in the military are straight, ask Eric Massa. [/quote]
That’s true. But its generally assumed that someone in the military is, I think.
Seems like it’s indicative of the way society is going at the moment.
Freedom of speech is one thing, and I certainly believe the right to freedom of speech is a human one.
However, I’m a massive anti-theist, and for someone to target someone when he’s already down and emotionally fucked is completely unacceptable.
for me, the crux of the matter is that whether they have the right to say these things or not, they’re lies and not true. religious fundies are causing problems and heart ache for millions of people because they believe something which just simply is not true.
they can say it, but if they say it where the intention is to rile up someone else, then insightment to violence is not on.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Some in some weird, twisted, perverted way you think this is a “good thing” this happened to the military families, huh? Gave them a little perspective? If so, and I mean if so, you might just be a worthless cunt of a human being kinda like the Westboro folks.
[/quote]
Nope, not a good thing at all. And, its good that people are speaking up about it now. My point was they should have been speaking up about it then, too.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Some in some weird, twisted, perverted way you think this is a “good thing” this happened to the military families, huh? Gave them a little perspective? If so, and I mean if so, you might just be a worthless cunt of a human being kinda like the Westboro folks.
[/quote]
Nope, not a good thing at all. And, its good that people are speaking up about it now. My point was they should have been speaking up about it then, too.[/quote]
I think that there’s a time to protest and a time to shut-up. The time to protest is NOT at a funeral of any sort. Any decent person knows this. And trust me most Americans have a pretty good sense of fairness and don’t want to see any of this nonsense happen regardless of who the deceased party is. However, the fact that it was a service man brings out the rage in many.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Funny. I mentioned protestors of this sort, carrying “God Hates Fags” signs, a long time ago on these forums, and I was told to “stop trampling peoples free speech.”[/quote]
It’s all about having the proper time and place, but you know that don’t you?[/quote]
When those assclowns target any funeral with this shit, it’s wrong. Just bothers me a bit that when they do it at the funeral of a homosexual, people don’t see it as equally immoral.[/quote]
You don’t suppose that it might have something to do with the honor of one who has given his life for his country vs. someone’s sexual preference?
Perspective. You might need some, buddy.
[/quote]
Sounds to me like you’re trying to imply that there is a proper time to picket someones funeral.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
FTR, if I were the parent of a homosexual kid and at his/her funeral and the WBC folks showed up I might just slit all their throats.[/quote]
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Makadoodle, you sure do have one of them reading comprehension problems. How do you ever make it through your daily Buddhism catechisms?[/quote]
I started wondering today what happened to you, Push. You used to be all… relaxed and talking about swinging and cracking jokes. Now every other post you’re all… grr, n’ stuff.