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Lawyer ordered to pay $4.5M to gay U-M student

Started by garbon, August 17, 2012, 10:20:16 AM

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garbon

August 17, 2012, 10:20:16 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-ordered-pay-4-5m-gay-u-m-222810693.html

QuoteA 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."

Odd and pretty terrible.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

DGuller

#1
August 17, 2012, 11:11:37 AM
The guy could've saved a lot of money if he visited a psychiatrist.  Penny wise, pound foolish.

Neil

#2
August 17, 2012, 11:23:56 AM
Juries are inferior to humans.  Film at 11.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Habbaku

#3
August 17, 2012, 11:33:05 AM
Amusingly, we talked about this guy (Shirvell) and his obsession with Armstrong at some point in the past.  Shirvell was on some news show and came off as more than a little closeted, it seemed to me.
The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.
-J. R. R. Tolkien

garbon

#4
August 17, 2012, 11:34:48 AM
Quote from: Habbaku on August 17, 2012, 11:33:05 AM
Shirvell was on some news show and came off as more than a little closeted, it seemed to me.

Oh without a doubt.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

dps

#5
August 17, 2012, 12:07:17 PM
I'm kind of amused by the idea that the being the student body president makes the guy a public figure.

That standard should probably logically apply to an article in a student newspaper criticizing him, but not to statements disseminated more generally--such as by posting them on the internet.

Eddie Teach

#6
August 17, 2012, 01:47:08 PM
So if calling a gay student gay is worth 4.5 million, how much is it worth calling a dead heterosexual Finnish general gay?  :hmm:
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

garbon

#7
August 17, 2012, 02:00:58 PM
I don't think the issue was that he called him gay, but good question.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

garbon

#8
August 17, 2012, 02:01:39 PM
Based on this, I want to start up a gay black kids group and then find some person to publicly trash me on their blog.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

HVC

#9
August 17, 2012, 02:06:17 PM
Quote from: garbon on August 17, 2012, 02:01:39 PM
Based on this, I want to start up a gay black kids group and then find some person to publicly trash me on their blog.
too many people in that group, you might not be the one choosen for stalking. Start a gay black republican group, that way there's you and like two other guys tops :P
Being lazy is bad; unless you still get what you want, then it's called "patience".
Hubris must be punished. Severely.

Valmy

#10
August 17, 2012, 02:26:15 PM Last Edit: August 17, 2012, 02:27:47 PM by Valmy
Well obviously that is libel (or is it slander?) but 4.5 Million is...well...
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Valmy

#11
August 17, 2012, 02:27:40 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 17, 2012, 01:47:08 PM
So if calling a gay student gay is worth 4.5 million, how much is it worth calling a dead heterosexual Finnish general gay?  :hmm:

Um I thought it was the fact he was accusing him of commiting a crime.  You know offering booze to minors in order to make them teh gay.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

garbon

#12
August 17, 2012, 02:48:16 PM
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

katmai

#13
August 17, 2012, 03:27:20 PM
I will gladly trash Garbon in public. :)
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son

The Brain

#14
August 17, 2012, 03:29:35 PM
 :huh: I'm afraid of gays.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.
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