Breaking News…
Father of slain marine won his case! Wow.
The brokenhearted father of a Marine killed in Iraq won a long-shot legal fight today after a federal jury in Baltimore awarded him nearly $11 million in a verdict against members of a Kansas church who hoisted anti-gay placards at his son’s Westminster funeral.
[...]
The courtroom fight came down to whether Westboro had a legal right to demonstrate at the March 2006 funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder or whether the protesters crossed the line because their message impugned the grieving family’s reputation and unlawfully invaded the Snyders’ privacy.
The Marine’s father from York, Pa., sued the church and three of its members for intentionally invading his privacy because his deceased son did not have that right any longer. For the claim to be successful, the jury needed to conclude that the church’s actions at the funeral — and later, in a posting about Matthew Snyder on its Web site — were “highly offensive to a reasonable person,” according to the jury instructions.
You can read more about it here.
posted October 31, 2007 at 11:11 pm
I wonder if it will hold up on appeal.
posted October 31, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I wonder if it will hold up on appeal.We can but hope.
posted November 1, 2007 at 10:46 am
Never thought there would come a day that we would celebrate a church being sued but hurray to this one. Topeka is an hour from my home, so I hear/see way too much of the Phelps clan.