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> The only counts Locher has not dismissed are defamation and invasion of privacy against the officers related to Galanakis' claim that Winters had been convict

by brvsft 3y ago

> The only counts Locher has not dismissed are defamation and invasion of privacy against the officers related to Galanakis' claim that Winters had been convicted of domestic abuse. “Nathan Winter of the Newton Police Department convicted of domestic abuse after beating up his ex girlfriend,” Galanakis wrote in one caption. A subsequent caption stated that Winters had “beat the shit out of” his girlfriend. Though Winters had a protective order filed against him, the counterclaim states that he has not been charged or convicted of domestic abuse. Locher agreed that on this basis claims of defamation and false-light invasion of privacy for both Winter and Wing (because of the implication that Wing did nothing to discipline Winters) can proceed. Most important part of the article as far as I can tell. Everything else was dismissed. These two cops are quite disgusting, especially Winters. I remember seeing this video when it originally went viral, and the 19-year-old seems calm and coherent. The only reason I think you could mistake him for drinking is his normal speech pattern has a kind of 'slur' to it. Nothing he did seemed wrong, just what they initially pulled him over for re: his headlights, which he had a consistent explanation for. They're just power hungry cops who wanted to fuck with someone.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? As my understanding is that if they had heard of the protection order and misunderstood what that meant they wouldn't be guilty of libel. I'm not sure if that's true, or if it would also apply to defamation.
- gspencley 3y ago
  > Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? IANAL but there are certain criteria that must be met from what I understand. Knowing the statements to be false is one of them, but then there is intent and motivation as well as actual damages. The reason that intent matters is that I could say something like: "Jeff Bezos is the type of guy that murders cats for fun." The above is an opinion that is using colourful language. However, it COULD be construed as a statement of fact. So if Jeff Bezos* wanted to sue me for defamation, he would have to make the case that I was making a statement of fact which I not only knew to be untrue, but that I also knew was likely to cause reputational harm that would lead to financial damages. * - And I'm asking to put aside the fact that Bezos is a public figure which raises the bar even higher, since people are more likely to talk about public figures and thus it is more likely and reasonable to get the facts wrong, to share personal opinions in ways that could be confused as factual statements and it is much less likely to cause the individual damages since most reasonable people kind of "get" this.
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    In the US, you can get hit for defamation even of a public figure if you made the statement with "reckless disregard for its truth or falseness". You don't have to know for sure that it's false. Either knowingly lying or "reckless disregard" is "actual malice". Private citizens need to prove actual malice to collect punitive damages, but mere negligence is enough for compensatory damages. That's for knowledge about the statement itself; I'm not sure what you have to know or intend about how much damage you'll do. That's constitutional standards; there may be state-to-state variations that impose more conditions. On edit: corrected; even for a non-public figure, it needs to be negligently false, so having taken reasonable steps to verify it should immunize you. But of course this kid clearly did not do this.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  You might get away with claiming that "convicted" was a mistake, or with claiming that you thought the restraining order was essentially the same thing (it's not; in some places those orders can be issued almost without even being requested). But you'd be on a lot firmer ground if you walked it back as soon as you were corrected. However, when you get to the point of specifically say the guy "beat the shit out of" his ex-girlfriend, you'd better have a good reason for believing that. Or if you have an iffy reason, you better say what the reason is, not just state the conclusion as fact. It sounds like the kid had no idea what was actually going on.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    A restraining order for domestic abuse being referred to as "best the shit out of" sounds like a pretty bog standard simplification to me. After all colloquially how else do you define domestic abuse? Exaggerating for emphasis doesn't usually qualify for negligence.
    - Hizonner 3y ago
      When I legally separated from my ex-wife in California, as I recall we had to check a box not to get restraining orders. Otherwise restraining orders would have been issued, I think against both of us, without either one even having to make any claim about any abuse or any risk thereof. Check the wrong box, automatic restraining order. That may not be what's meant by "protective order", but at a minimum you should be able to get a protective order against somebody who, for example, threatened violence without actually doing it. That might be evidence of a bad temper or bad judgement or just general assholeism, but that is a long, long way from "beating the shit out of" somebody. Well out of "emphasis" range. On edit: Oh, and really you could get the order just by saying that the person threatened you, whether they really did or not. So the order is really only proof that there was an allegation, not even so much as a nasty word.
      - Guvante 3y ago
        Negligence of the truth is the standard. Being wrong is not sufficient for a defamation case. All of these mistakes make the statement wrong and not factual but that isn't enough for a defamation case. My point is if it was a simple mistake or misunderstanding that is enough to prove it wasn't negligence. Verifying a article about the thing existed while misrepresenting that thing is likely not negligence unless that misrepresentstion was extreme. Certainly "killed his girlfriend" would be negligent but if you misunderstood the thing in a minor way that isn't negligence just because you are wrong. (To be clear the statement was certainly objectively false for multiple reasons)
- Guvante 3y ago
  Defamation of a public figure requires knowing that the statement was false, or reckless negligence of the truth. Defamation of a non-public figure requires negligence of the truth. Assuming the cop can be considered a non-public figure they would need to prove that the statement was made without a lot of consideration for the truth. Given there is nuance here as to the details of the case it is going to be hard to win a defamation case here. A layperson misunderstanding the difference between a court order and a conviction likely isn't enough to justify damages. Smells of using the courts to punish someone by forcing them to lawyer up.
  - szundi 3y ago
    Thanks for this simple and thourogh answer
  - tyingq 3y ago
    > Smells of using the courts to punish someone by forcing them to lawyer up. Though the publicity seems to be making it backfire for the police. I can imagine him getting a pro-bono lawyer based on the publicity. And the details of the protective order leaking out, etc. Streisand effect.
    - miguelazo 3y ago
      Yeah, I would imagine ACLU or EFF would pick this up for free.
  - theossuary 3y ago
    This fits an old adage of cops, "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." This is what that means, it's common for cops to punish people by simply forcing them to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to beat charges they know won't stick. DAs go along with it because they know cops can destroy their career if they stop providing cases/evidence.
    - hollerith 3y ago
      I love how you imply that the only time DAs participate in gratuitous punishment of citizens is when cops threaten their careers.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  Defamation requires negligence (if the plaintiff is not a public figure) or actual malice (if the plaintiff is a public figure). In every case you'll ever hear about, the plaintiff is a public figure, and I don't doubt the police officers will be ruled public figures here. Actual malice in the legal sense has nothing to do with the regular meaning of those words in English. It instead requires that the defamer have seriously entertained doubts about the truth of the statements, and published them anyways. In this case? I'd have a hard time finding them defamatory were I on the jury. One of the statements is alleging that the cop is a "convicted" domestic abuser, where the truth is that he has a protective order placed against him in relation to alleged domestic abuse yet has never been charged nor convicted. Another statement is alleging that the cop is "on the slow spectrum" on social media, which--honestly, I'm surprised the judge didn't toss that on motion to dismiss, it's pretty clearly typical hyperbolic puffery.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    All it takes to get a protective order is a allegation. It is a common tactic that women use in divorce to file false domestic abuse or child abuse claims. It's called a "silver bullet divorce". Unfortunately abuse of the legal system like this has made it necessary to be skeptical of claims of domestic abuse without evidence.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      Sure, there's actually a chasm of difference between a protective order and a full criminal conviction. That's enough to meet the falsehood requirement of defamation. However, to demonstrate actual malice, you have to demonstrate that the defendant knew of just how different the two things were, which is frankly a pretty tall ask.
      - FireBeyond 3y ago
        > However, to demonstrate actual malice, you have to demonstrate that the defendant knew of just how different the two things were, which is frankly a pretty tall ask If I was a defendant in such a thing, I'd point to numerous cases where police departments have claimed, and courts have agreed, that police are not expected to be experts on the law. "If law enforcement officers can be held by the court to not have to have a nuanced understanding of the law, how could I possibly?"
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by brvsft 3y ago

boomboomsubban 3y ago

Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? As my understanding is that if they had heard of the protection order and misunderstood what that meant they wouldn't be guilty of libel. I'm not sure if that's true, or if it would also apply to defamation.

gspencley 3y ago
> Does defamation require the person to knowingly spread false information? IANAL but there are certain criteria that must be met from what I understand. Knowing the statements to be false is one of them, but then there is intent and motivation as well as actual damages. The reason that intent matters is that I could say something like: "Jeff Bezos is the type of guy that murders cats for fun." The above is an opinion that is using colourful language. However, it COULD be construed as a statement of fact. So if Jeff Bezos* wanted to sue me for defamation, he would have to make the case that I was making a statement of fact which I not only knew to be untrue, but that I also knew was likely to cause reputational harm that would lead to financial damages. * - And I'm asking to put aside the fact that Bezos is a public figure which raises the bar even higher, since people are more likely to talk about public figures and thus it is more likely and reasonable to get the facts wrong, to share personal opinions in ways that could be confused as factual statements and it is much less likely to cause the individual damages since most reasonable people kind of "get" this.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  In the US, you can get hit for defamation even of a public figure if you made the statement with "reckless disregard for its truth or falseness". You don't have to know for sure that it's false. Either knowingly lying or "reckless disregard" is "actual malice". Private citizens need to prove actual malice to collect punitive damages, but mere negligence is enough for compensatory damages. That's for knowledge about the statement itself; I'm not sure what you have to know or intend about how much damage you'll do. That's constitutional standards; there may be state-to-state variations that impose more conditions. On edit: corrected; even for a non-public figure, it needs to be negligently false, so having taken reasonable steps to verify it should immunize you. But of course this kid clearly did not do this.
Hizonner 3y ago
You might get away with claiming that "convicted" was a mistake, or with claiming that you thought the restraining order was essentially the same thing (it's not; in some places those orders can be issued almost without even being requested). But you'd be on a lot firmer ground if you walked it back as soon as you were corrected. However, when you get to the point of specifically say the guy "beat the shit out of" his ex-girlfriend, you'd better have a good reason for believing that. Or if you have an iffy reason, you better say what the reason is, not just state the conclusion as fact. It sounds like the kid had no idea what was actually going on.
- Guvante 3y ago
  A restraining order for domestic abuse being referred to as "best the shit out of" sounds like a pretty bog standard simplification to me. After all colloquially how else do you define domestic abuse? Exaggerating for emphasis doesn't usually qualify for negligence.
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    When I legally separated from my ex-wife in California, as I recall we had to check a box not to get restraining orders. Otherwise restraining orders would have been issued, I think against both of us, without either one even having to make any claim about any abuse or any risk thereof. Check the wrong box, automatic restraining order. That may not be what's meant by "protective order", but at a minimum you should be able to get a protective order against somebody who, for example, threatened violence without actually doing it. That might be evidence of a bad temper or bad judgement or just general assholeism, but that is a long, long way from "beating the shit out of" somebody. Well out of "emphasis" range. On edit: Oh, and really you could get the order just by saying that the person threatened you, whether they really did or not. So the order is really only proof that there was an allegation, not even so much as a nasty word.
    - Guvante 3y ago
      Negligence of the truth is the standard. Being wrong is not sufficient for a defamation case. All of these mistakes make the statement wrong and not factual but that isn't enough for a defamation case. My point is if it was a simple mistake or misunderstanding that is enough to prove it wasn't negligence. Verifying a article about the thing existed while misrepresenting that thing is likely not negligence unless that misrepresentstion was extreme. Certainly "killed his girlfriend" would be negligent but if you misunderstood the thing in a minor way that isn't negligence just because you are wrong. (To be clear the statement was certainly objectively false for multiple reasons)
Guvante 3y ago
Defamation of a public figure requires knowing that the statement was false, or reckless negligence of the truth. Defamation of a non-public figure requires negligence of the truth. Assuming the cop can be considered a non-public figure they would need to prove that the statement was made without a lot of consideration for the truth. Given there is nuance here as to the details of the case it is going to be hard to win a defamation case here. A layperson misunderstanding the difference between a court order and a conviction likely isn't enough to justify damages. Smells of using the courts to punish someone by forcing them to lawyer up.
- szundi 3y ago
  Thanks for this simple and thourogh answer
- tyingq 3y ago
  > Smells of using the courts to punish someone by forcing them to lawyer up. Though the publicity seems to be making it backfire for the police. I can imagine him getting a pro-bono lawyer based on the publicity. And the details of the protective order leaking out, etc. Streisand effect.
  - miguelazo 3y ago
    Yeah, I would imagine ACLU or EFF would pick this up for free.
- theossuary 3y ago
  This fits an old adage of cops, "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." This is what that means, it's common for cops to punish people by simply forcing them to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to beat charges they know won't stick. DAs go along with it because they know cops can destroy their career if they stop providing cases/evidence.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    I love how you imply that the only time DAs participate in gratuitous punishment of citizens is when cops threaten their careers.
jcranmer 3y ago
Defamation requires negligence (if the plaintiff is not a public figure) or actual malice (if the plaintiff is a public figure). In every case you'll ever hear about, the plaintiff is a public figure, and I don't doubt the police officers will be ruled public figures here. Actual malice in the legal sense has nothing to do with the regular meaning of those words in English. It instead requires that the defamer have seriously entertained doubts about the truth of the statements, and published them anyways. In this case? I'd have a hard time finding them defamatory were I on the jury. One of the statements is alleging that the cop is a "convicted" domestic abuser, where the truth is that he has a protective order placed against him in relation to alleged domestic abuse yet has never been charged nor convicted. Another statement is alleging that the cop is "on the slow spectrum" on social media, which--honestly, I'm surprised the judge didn't toss that on motion to dismiss, it's pretty clearly typical hyperbolic puffery.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  All it takes to get a protective order is a allegation. It is a common tactic that women use in divorce to file false domestic abuse or child abuse claims. It's called a "silver bullet divorce". Unfortunately abuse of the legal system like this has made it necessary to be skeptical of claims of domestic abuse without evidence.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    Sure, there's actually a chasm of difference between a protective order and a full criminal conviction. That's enough to meet the falsehood requirement of defamation. However, to demonstrate actual malice, you have to demonstrate that the defendant knew of just how different the two things were, which is frankly a pretty tall ask.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      > However, to demonstrate actual malice, you have to demonstrate that the defendant knew of just how different the two things were, which is frankly a pretty tall ask If I was a defendant in such a thing, I'd point to numerous cases where police departments have claimed, and courts have agreed, that police are not expected to be experts on the law. "If law enforcement officers can be held by the court to not have to have a nuanced understanding of the law, how could I possibly?"

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]