RandomPearson v DepressedBisexual 2021 Civ 1
RandomPearson v DepressedBisexual 2021 Civ 1
| Date of judgment | 10th February 2021 |
|---|---|
| Judge | Justice TheLittleSparty |
| Grounds | Tort of Defamation (Article 16\) |
| Verdict | D held not liable for Defamation |
| Result | |
| Applicable persuasive precedent | Personal insults do not constitute Defamation, 10 The court may make nonbinding requests for remedy, even if the defendant is found not responsible, 12 |
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JUDGMENT by Justice TheLittleSparty
Introduction
[1]. The plaintiff, RandomPearson, alleges defamation charges against the defendant DepressedBisexual and requests a 3000 Tau compensation.
[2]. The defendant claims that the alleged defamation is false.
[3]. The required 24 hour period that is supposed to be situated between the final submission of evidence and the beginning of proceedings has been voluntarily waived by both the plaintiff and the defendant.
Procedure
[4]. The plaintiff, using their first piece of evidence, established that the defense was knowingly aware that the plaintiff is anti-pedophilia in their beliefs. The defense counsel then concurs with the sentiment that pedophilia is bad.
[5]. The plaintiff submitted a slightly different version of the first piece of evidence, a submission which the defense noted as having added no substance to the case, a notion which this court finds to be correct.
[6]. The plaintiff, using their third piece of evidence, establishes that the defendant claimed the plaintiff to be “pro-pedophile”.
6.1 The exact wording being “try to be less pro-pedophile or something idk”.
6.2 The plaintiff then establishes, by virtue of comparing timestamps, that Ithe defendant had seen the message where the plaintiff stated that he is anti-pedophile, and despite this knowledge, the defendant alleged that the plaintiff was pro-pedophile.
6.3 The defense then claims the conclusion of the above cited evidence to be “quite insane”, and claimed there to be “zero proof that the defendant knowingly made a false statement to intend to harm in this situation.”
6.4 The defense then enters into a mostly irrelevant description of a mildly similar hypothetical situation about the status of a communist in someone’s mind, a situation which this court finds to have no bearing on the case.
[7]. The plaintiff, using their fourth piece of evidence, establishes that the plaintiff had recently entered into a depressed state following their very recent quitting of a hobby.
7.1 The plaintiff further explains this to be relevant as the alleged defamation occurred during a time in which the plaintiff was depressed, thus causing the alleged defamation to affect them in a detrimental fashion mentally.
7.2 The defense replied to this by claiming that there is no evidence of a connection existing between the fact that the plaintiff is depressed and the alleged defamation. In doing so, the defense compared timestamps and suggested that the timeline of the plaintiff quitting his hobby, being depressed, and the alleged defamation, did not coincide with the stated timeline.
7.3 The debate over the timeline devolved into the defense claiming the plaintiff to not understand thermodynamics or the linear flow of time. Neither of these claims having any bearing to the case at hand, they are to be disregarded in this case, however see the section below for elaboration.
7.4 It has been found that the court system of SimDemocracy has no authority to judge the laws of thermodynamics, or to validate or invalidate our current understanding of the flow of time. As such, the defense’s claims of the plaintiff misapplying the theory of linear time cannot be entered as a legitimate argument heard before the court, primarily due to the fact that for the court to hear and consider the argument, the court would have to approve of, or in some other way acknowledge the validity of the theory of linear time, which this court has no reason, nor any valid basis, to do so.
7.5 As withstanding the previous element of this judgement, this court finds the defense’s next claim of “The defense believes that the plaintiff exists in one directional time” to be a not valid argument for this case, as it violates the standard the previous element establishes.
7.6 In the plaintiff’s final statement on this matter, they established a timeline which this court approves of as the accepted timeline of events, as it does not call into question our understanding of time, but rather establishes a simple linked chain of events. This timeline is seen below.
7.6.1 “The plaintiff quits downvote farming --\> the plaintiff is defamed by the defendant --\> the defamation causes the plaintiff to get depressed --\> the plaintiff has nothing to help him cope with the depression because he quit downvote farming already”
7.7 In the defense’s final statement on the matter, the defense establishes that the cause of the initial depression that the plaintiff is suffering was self induced by the plaintiff, as they had voluntarily quit their own hobby. This fact the court acknowledges to be the case, the purpose of this fact being that the misunderstanding that the alleged defamation is not the cause of the depression but rather an aggravating factor.
[8]. The plaintiff’s closing statement, after taking some time to compose, consisted of reiterating these key arguments:
8.1 The plaintiff establishes that the defendant was knowingly aware that the statement they made was untrue.
8.2 The plaintiff establishes that the defendant’s statement was intended to harm, and indeed did harm, the plaintiff.
8.3 The plaintiff claims that these two facts satisfy the requirements of defamation in a manor greater than a 50% balance of probability requires, those requirements being found in section 2 of article 16 of the Civil Code:
8.3.1 “§2. A user may only be found liable for defamation if they intend harm and know that the statement is false.”
[9]. The defense closes with the arguments that:
9.1 “The plaintiff has not shown that the defendant intended harm.”
9.2 “The plaintiff has not shown that the defendant made a ‘knowingly false statement’.”
9.3 “Yawn”. This claim holds no merit whatsoever and is to be disregarded by this court.
9.4 “The defense holds that the plaintiff had not provided any evidence of the two-directionality of time.” This claim is to be disregarded as per section 7.4 of this judgement.
Did the defendant commit defamation?
[10]. This court finds firstly that the statements made by the defendant indeed did cause, and were intended to cause, harm to the plaintiff. This harm however was not defamatory in nature, and rather appears to have been intended as a personal insult made in public. As such, while harm was caused, defamatory harm was not.
[11]. This court finds that, due to lack of provided context for the original statement made by the defendant, the defendant was more than probably aware of the plaintiff’s personal opinion and stance towards pedophilia, that stance being professedly anti-pedophile. As the burden of proof always falls on the accuser, and the defendant who made the claim provided no evidence as to the validity of the accusation, this court finds that the defendant was knowingly aware of the untruthfulness of their claim, and as such do validate the second point that is required of a defamation claim.
[12]. As both points were not validated, this court finds in favor of DepressedBisexual, as the statement made did not constitute defamation as alleged, although as harm has clearly been committed, the court does request one apology to be issued by DepressedBisexual to RandomPearson, due to the clear mental anguish this case has caused to the plaintiff.
