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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/12/2006 : 13:50:48
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First we are getting a new and hopefully less corrupt Congress, and then Rumsfeld got his sorry ass shitcanned, and now this: quote:
Anti-Gay Church Must Pay Marine's Family
POSTED: 10:15 am EST December 12, 2006
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BALTIMORE -- A Kansas church has been ordered to pay $3,150 for costs and fees associated with a summons and complaint filed by the father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by the extremist group.
Albert Snyder, of York, Pa., is suing the Rev. Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church after church members demonstrated at the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, of Westminster, and posted pictures of the protest on their Web site.
Lance Snyder was killed in Iraq in March. Members of the Topeka church claim U.S. soldiers are killed as God's punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality.
Well, it ain't much, a little over 3 grand, but at least it's a start. Westboro Baptist has 30 days to cough up.
If they pay it, and I don't see where it's worth an appeal, might not others be inspired to try and get a piece of them? Damn' straight!
I hate to wish anyone bad luck, but wouldn't it be lovely if these dipshits spent a year or two in court trying to get the families of those they have derided off their necks?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 12/12/2006 : 15:59:28 [Permalink]
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That's a start. I doubt that $3,150 is going to bother them much. Maybe there are greater fees they can be made to pay in civil courts. Everyone is supposed to have freedom of speech, and that pretty much holds. But that doesn't mean that free speech isn't afterward subject to civil suits for defamation and slander. I hope others get some serious money out of Westboro Baptist.
That's maybe the only thing short of violence that's gonna stop them. If a typical funeral demonstration cost Phred, say, $50,000, he'd quickly find something else to do with his hatred.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2006 : 20:21:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
...
That's maybe the only thing short of violence that's gonna stop them. If a typical funeral demonstration cost Phred, say, $50,000, he'd quickly find something else to do with his hatred.
So the other families who had the pleasure of a Phelps serenade at their son's funerals need to follow suit. That would add up to 50K I would think. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2006 : 21:28:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
So the other families who had the pleasure of a Phelps serenade at their son's funerals need to follow suit. That would add up to 50K I would think.
The lesson is going to be learned this once (from the linked article):Phelps and the church refused to grant a waiver in the serving of summonses in connection with the federal lawsuit, making the church liable for those costs. My bet is - since the article is so free of details - that Phelps' lawyer(s) thought that it'd be a good idea to make the plaintiffs jump through some sort of massively inconvenient and legally unnecessary hoops with regard to the plaintiffs' serving summonses, and Federal law says that if you make the opposing party mount those sorts of hurdles, you get to pay their expenses for doing so. (Something like having a highly-paid government official fly out and hand deliver the summonses instead of accepting them from a low-paid local Federal clerk.)
If my hunch is correct, then Phelps (and/or his lawyers) felt that putting the plaintiffs through the hassle would be worth the money, or there's some sort of legal minutae involved that gives them some modicum of an advantage at trial for not granting whatever waiver was involved, and so they thought that would be worth the money. It seems ludicrous to me to think that the respondents were ignorant of the $3,150 fee they'd be incurring by failing to grant the waiver, so I don't even understand why this is news. The same thing probably happens a hundred times a day, nationwide, meaning that it's only news because it's Phelps - and he probably appreciates having a photo of his hate-filled signs in the paper.
Make no mistake: the $3,150 is not a judgement against Phelps, and it's obvious that he could have avoided it simply by granting a waiver. More of the same sort of lawsuits against him are not necessarily going to add up to any more fees than he's already spending on lawyers - and he's probably got at least one working full-time already, perhaps costing more than $3,000 each and every day. More than $50K every month, easy.
Heck, according to Wikipedia, the Church spends over $250,000 a year just on their picketing activities. The article mentions a couple of lawsuits Phelps won, and then, "Otherwise, all of the church's money comes from the combined income of its congregants and money won in lawsuits against their opponents." If they can afford $250K a year in travel expenses, they're not so poor that $50K is going to impact them severely. At best, it represents a 20% drop in their activity levels. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2006 : 03:33:45 [Permalink]
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I see.... This showcases the reason that I have as little to do with the legal system as possible. Only a lawyer can understand such convolutions.
If I'm not mistaken, the main lawyer is one Shirley Phelps-Roper, a daughter, and she is beyond bitch. Fred himself is a disbarred lawyer, as well as a drooling lunatic with an other-people's-penis fascination.
It all sounds like a tidy, little cult, doesn't it? Well it is, and I guess the best anyone can hope for is that they all cut off their nuts and drink the Kool-Aid upon the arrival of the next comet.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2006 : 04:04:31 [Permalink]
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| If that is the case then Dave is likely correct, they knew what they were doing in allowing the $3K judgement. |
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