Court Awards More Than $1.1 Million to Man After Blogger Defames Him
Freedom of speech is a right. Facts and truth are expected when talking about other people in a public manner. False reports are legally, financially risky.
A citizen can share news online and voice their opinion about social issues upon which they disagree or which infuriate them. It is still expected however that when talking about people, especially in a disparaging way, that what we communicate is factual and truthful and does not falsely misrepresent them and harm them.
Another blogger discovered that she either jumped to conclusions or that her disgust and agenda led her to do something egregious, offensive, dangerous and costly: “Idaho drag performer awarded $1.1m in defamation case, Blogger falsely claimed performer exposed himself to children during Pride event.”
This article is not about drag performers. That doesn’t matter in this story. What does matter is someone being the catalyst for extensive harm by defaming another person.
“COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — A jury has awarded more than $1.1 million to an Idaho drag performer who accused a far-right blogger of defaming him when she falsely claimed that he exposed himself to a crowd, including children, during a Pride event in June 2022,” reports the Associated Press (AP).
You can see how such an accusation could be a crushing blow to someone’s social standing and professional and personal well-being. It being untrue makes it worse.
“The Kootenai County District Court jury unanimously found that Summer Bushnell defamed Post Falls resident Eric Posey when she posted a doctored video of his performance with a blurred spot that she claimed covered his ‘fully exposed genitals,’” the Coeur D’Alene Press reported.
That type of inflammatory, public communication can end many professional and personal relationships for someone and quite possibly push them to suicide or if not that, then still dark depression and suicidal ideation. A small percentage of harmed people might go so far as to retaliate with violence, maybe even widespread violence.
“In reality, the unedited video showed no indecent exposure, and prosecutors declined to file charges,” according to the AP.
“The judicial system did what needed to be done,” Posey said. “Jurors awarded Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation. Because Posey proved that Bushnell knew her allegations were false when she made them or that she made the accusations with reckless disregard for the truth, the jury awarded $250,000 in additional punitive damages,” the AP reported.
Here is what was and is factual:
“Posey… performed three times at the Pride in the Park celebration wearing a long-sleeve leotard, black shorts and tights, with a shiny metallic boa around his waist. He did not remove clothing,” the AP wrote.
“Why did no one arrest the man in a dress who flashed his genitalia to minors and people in the crowd?” Bushnell said when communicating online. “No one said anything about it, and there’s video. I’m going to put up a blurred video to prove it.”
Imagine for a moment of being publicly accused of such horrific behavior.
The following day, Bushnell went so far as to communicate that Posey “had committed a felony and urged people to call police and have him arrested,” the AP reported.
Fast forward to the verdict. She was expressionless as she hurried out of the courtroom. Posey’s reaction was relief and joy as he burst into tears and hugged his lawyers and friends, the AP wrote.
“Imagine being in a dark hole where you have nobody and you felt the whole world turn their back on you,” Posey said in court previously. “But somehow, you were surrounded by warriors, true people of Idaho — not transplants, true people of this soil. I am fortunate to say I have people like that around me, people that lifted me up.”
Interestingly, “before returning the verdict, jurors asked the court if they could direct Bushnell to take down her posts about Posey and publicly apologize to him,” according to the AP.
The answer may have surprised them and readers now.
”First District Judge Ross Pittman, who presided over the trial, indicated they could not do so.”
Anger and ego drive a lot of poor decision making. Most of us have learned that from our own behavior or from what we have observed in life.
In this case, the blogger — Summer Bushnell — may have had good intentions or thought she did but in what appears to be a case of confirmation bias mixed with disgust and fuzzy perception, she jumped the gun and communicated something that was not factual and true and called for legal action against a person who had not committed a crime.
Even if cruelty wasn’t her motive, it was destructive behavior towards another human.
It was a bad scene and one she likely had no idea would accelerate into legal action against her and a judgment that will, I suspect, cause her misery the rest of her life.
There are specific ways that writers, podcasters and video content creators can wisely, precisely communicate that doesn’t defame and if not eliminate defamation risks, makes the likelihood of them minimal.
Resist the temptation to assume, to be overconfident, to communicate overly definitively, without more research. Be more controlled in what you say and how you say it and what is said and inferred and what is not communicated.
Seems simple. It’s not. It is doable.
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Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence: Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically and responsibly protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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