Lawyer ordered to pay $4.5M to gay U-M student
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(AP) DETROIT - A jury on Thursday awarded a gay University of Michigan student body president $4.5 million in his lawsuit against a former Michigan assistant attorney general who posted about him in an anti-gay blog.
The U.S. District Court jury ruled in favor of Christopher Armstrong, who claimed he suffered distress after a blog created by Andrew Shirvell accused him of enticing minors with alcohol and recruiting people to become homosexual.
"I'm just incredibly humbled by what happened today," Armstrong told The Associated Press. "This is truly a victory — not just for myself, but for a lot of other kids out there."
Shirvell, who was representing himself, said the jury award was "grossly excessive" for what was "clearly protected speech ... and activity."
"This should have been thrown out," he said, adding that he plans to appeal. "Juries give short shrift to First Amendment rights."
Armstrong accused Shirvell of defamation as well as emotional distress for his actions on the blog, in Facebook posts and during visits to the Ann Arbor campus.
Then-Attorney General Mike Cox fired Shirvell in 2010 after he criticized Armstrong, who graduated last year.
Shirvell has said he viewed his blog "as a movement to get" Armstrong to resign. Shirvell argued he was acting within his First Amendment rights and that his statements were either true or protected because of Armstrong's role as a public figure.
Armstrong's attorney, Deborah Gordon, had said she would drop the lawsuit if Shirvell apologized and retracted his comments. Shirvell said that was disingenuous, since it wasn't until closing arguments that a multimillion-dollar award was brought up.
Shirvell said he's unemployed and "there's no way I could possibly ever pay such a judgment."
Gordon said the jury couldn't make him apologize, so the money was the only answer.
"We needed him to retract the flat-out fabrications he had come up with about Chris," she said. "Once he refused to take responsibility, we put it in the hands of the jury."
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It does NOT condone abusive, rude, mean, derogatory HATE speech!
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Nothing here is applicable in a civil manner. Were the awards ridiculous? YEAH. However, the First isn't applicable here, and it's time people stopped using that BS "free speech" argument. Yes, you CAN say whatever you want, but you MUST also be held accountable
It must be a real piece of work to cause such a hurtful response.
How is the desire to fulfill the will of the people, considered bigotry?
"populism" is a dangerous excuse to make.
Some would use it to justify the reintegration of slavery or similar paradigms...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHDUaYGOFso
Listen to it in its entirety. THAT is what populism boils down to - he claims to represent people but if the people want slavery. He uses his constituents as puppets, and he forgets that we are supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy. Nor would democracy, by any measure involving informed and educated people, tolerate slavery, because such educated people would understand they might fit the definition of "slave".
As a kid, I was dealt far worse and got $0 for it.
Defamation is a fair issue to consider, as defamation occurs when accusations are thrown out with absolutely nothing to even back up or prop up said claim with, but I suspect the terminology and qualifiers for it will become so loose that anyone can cry... in short, change your name to "nomorediscussionforums" thanks to those who typically don't cite sources...