insurance question

[Stan Brown]

None of the first 30 hits for "red kimono" looks particularly relevant to libel or slander.

And Melvin v. Reid appears to be about invasion of privacy, not libel or slander.

[Stan Brown]

And the relevance of that to getting *sued* for libel, which is what everyone else was discussing, would be .... ?

[dpb]

I call 'em the way I see 'em...she spilled it (and certainly the case I recall was in the lap in the car and attempted to drive away). "You do the stupid thing, you pay" is my motto...

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[Eigenvector]

Don't argue with a troll, it doesn't do any good.

[dpb]

Eigenvector wrote: ...

Oh, "I knows dat"... :)

It's simply mind-boggling the lengths some go to in their diatribes against any "big-pockets" and the multitudes who have the "ain't _my_ fault" mindset to find somebody else to blame attitude in order to cop out of the consequences of their own mistakes... :(

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[Deadrat]

Stan Brown wrote in news: [e-mail]:

No, that's for the tort of libel, a civil action in which one private individual sues another. Criminal libel is a crime, prosecuted by the state, and the Supreme Court has restricted these prosecutions to cases involving actual malice.

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:40:35 GMT from Deadrat :

Citation, please?

[Deadrat]

dpb wrote in news:f8i697$foa$ [e-mail]:

It's simply mindboggling the lengths some go in defending large corporations that have the attitude that the bottom line is more important than any duty toward the public.

I've heard no "diatribes" in this thread, unless it's yours against "stupid" people.

And it's "deep pockets"; not "big-pockets."

Posters on this thread have tried to tell you about contributory negligence, about the responsibility assigned to the plaintiff by the jury, and about McDonald's knowledge about the dangers of 180 degree liquids.

You can lead some people to the beverage of knowledge, but no matter how potable, some simply won't drink.

[dpb]

They have their viewpoint, I have mine... :)

I've been pretty much deliberate in what I've said on purpose.

I understand full well of "contributory negligence", etc., but I still happen to disagree w/ the magnitude of the settlement as being at all justified in any of the cases against Mickey-D's. You can disagree w/ me, that's fine and quibble over choice of words, too.

I might even agree that they could have been a little smarter in their initial settlements, but I don't know the intimate details of the individual litigant's cases other than the bare-bones facts of at least a couple of the cases (as reported, and those reports can often be far less than candid).

And, for the case of which I have read the most, I stand by the assessment of the action of the plaintiff was simply a foolish thing to have done (that better? :) ).

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[Stan Brown]

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:59:41 GMT from Deadrat :

Thank you. It's always particularly delicious when a Usenet poster states something outré and then actually provides a citation that refutes his own position.

I googled for "Garrison v. State of Louisiana" and the VERY FIRST HIT was

which states "But in 1964 the United States Supreme Court decision in Garrison v. Louisiana ended criminal libel."

So I don't know what you're on about with "actual malice" in criminal libel, but you might as well argue about the powers of the royal governor in contemporary Massachusets.

[¥ UltraMan ¥ is a child sex pr]

In a cup holder, you f****ng child raper!

You like stuffing things up children's asses, don't you, you f****ng baby raper!

[Deadrat]

Stan Brown wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You might want to actually read the case, which did "end" criminal libel. From the decision:

In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 , we held that the Constitution limits state power, in a civil action brought by a public official for criticism of his official conduct, to an award of damages for a false statement "made with `actual malice' - that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." 376 U.S., at 279 -280. At the outset, we must decide whether, in view of the differing history and purposes of criminal libel, the New York Times rule also limits state power to impose criminal sanctions for criticism of the official conduct of public officials. We hold that it does.

Criminal libel statutes seem to me to violate the spirit of our system, but what I think doesn't matter. What the Supreme Court thinks is what matters. Criminal libel statutes are alive and well in some states (17 according to a web search). In 2004, the ACLU intervened in a case in which Colorado officials attempted to use that state's criminal libel statute against the publisher of a satirical ezine called "The Howling Pig" that mocked people at a state university. In 2006, Colorado got a guilty plea for criminal libel from a student for nasty stuff he posted on MySpace.

These cases are usually brought by thin-skinned public officials on their own behalf, and Garrison requires they show actual malice. However, the statutes are often phrased to cover any defamation, and I suppose there could be interest in using them against abusive internet posters. Would these criminal prosecutions on behalf of ordinary citizens require showing actual malice? I don't know. Are these statutes as written unconstitutional? I don't know that either, but The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is thinking about it.

I do know that you don't know what you're talking about.

[clifto]

Ya gotta read the material. The facts were not at all private, they were widely available in publicly open court documents.

Do try to keep up.

[clifto]

Looks like I have my cases switched around somehow.

[Deadrat]

clifto wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Do you have a reading problem? Or is it a more general cognitive disorder?

Your claim was that truth won't necessarily get you off the hook for defamation, and the example you cited was Melvin v. Reid.

That suit, however, was based on the tort of invasion of privacy, not defamation. Notwithstanding your judgment about it, the Red Kimono case was a bad example. That's all I was claiming.

Now, apparently if *you* had been on the jury, *you* wouldn't have voted to hold the defendant liable because *you* believed the facts weren't private. The actual jury found otherwise.

But even if the actual jury had agreed with you, Melvin v. Reid *still* wouldn't be about defamation.

[clifto]

That may have been. I somehow linked Kimono with libel in the past, and did a quick check by finding the case with searches involving "red" and "libel", so it got past me.

"The judges were unable to find any law in California providing for the right of privacy tort, and they ruled that the use of the facts from the trial could not be actionable because the facts appeared in the records of the plaintiff's trial for murder. However, the judges ruled that the actual, true name of the woman should not have been used, even though it also appeared in those same court records."

The judges and the jury all agreed that the facts were not private. They ruled the way they ruled in spite of that.

[Don Klipstein]

This is California here, with some special-extreme "state" ("provincial") laws on many issues including privacy. This includes so much as protecting an individual's privacy from fellow private individuals, to the extent of "outlawing espionage equipment" (my words) including "parabolic microphones" (outlawing of those being fact according to as best as I can remember at least one one catalog statement).

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Deadrat]

clifto wrote in news: [e-mail]:

That may have been? I guess that means that we're now in agreement that the Red Kimono case is not an apt counterexample to the claim about defamation.

Thanks for sharing. You seem to think there's something peculiar about this case. There isn't.

I'm not sufficiently well-versed enough in California civil law to claim expertise, but I know that torts come in two flavors, common law and statutory. The fact that the "judges were unable to find any law in California providing for the right of privacy tort" may mean nothing at all.

The jury ruled that the movie "The Red Kimono" invaded the privacy of Gabrielle Melvin nee Darley because it brought to public attention Gabrielle's notorious premarital past. The case had been forgotten when the movie came out, and without the movie no one would have associated Melvin with Darley. That the facts were public (as part of court proceedings) didn't matter so much as the facts weren't before the public. This determination was properly up to the jury, "in spite" of your misgivings.

[¥ UltraMan ¥]

"If you confine yourself to facts, then as a *matter of law* you have not committed libel or slander." -- Stan Brown, explaining how Felonies are not a "matter of law"

1) A person who shall knowingly publish or disseminate, either by written instrument, sign, pictures, or the like, any statement or object tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation or expose the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule, commits criminal libel.

(2) It shall be an affirmative defense that the publication was true, except libels tending to blacken the memory of the dead and libels tending to expose the natural defects of the living.

(3) Criminal libel is a class 6 felony.

[Stan Brown]

Actually, no. I was explaining how the law operates in suits for libel or slander. Not quite the same thing.

And it's *still* irrelevant.