How Much Can You Sue for Defamation of Character
(CNN)Actor Alec Baldwin is being sued for defamation and negligence by the family of a fallen Marine after comments he made nigh ane family member's presence outside the United states Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to a suit filed Monday in the US Commune Court for the Commune of Wyoming.
The sisters and widow of Lance Corporal Rylee J. McCollum, who died on August 26, 2021, during the suicide bomber assail in Kabul, Afghanistan, are asking for $25 million plus legal fees after suffering severe distress following Baldwin's comments, according to the court filing.
After McCollum's death, a GoFundMe account was started for his widow Jiennah McCollum "and her soon-to-be-born daughter," the suit says. Baldwin heard about the GoFundMe account and sent a cheque of $v,000 to the Marine's sis, Roice McCollum, for Jiennah and her child as what he called "a tribute to a fallen soldier," according to the conform.
On January 3, Roice "posted a photograph of a crowd of demonstrators at the Washington Monument on her Instagram page in apprehension of the Jan 6, 2022, i-year anniversary of her attendance at the Washington, DC demonstration," the suit said.
On January six, 2021, hundreds of supporters of then-President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.s.a. Capitol to protest Congress certifying the results of the 2022 ballot. Many rioters pushed aside barricades and law enforcement officers to breach the building, storming some of the about hallowed chambers of American democracy and setting off stupor waves of violence and division across the country. The consequences of that day continue to reverberate.
When Baldwin saw Roice's post alee of the i-yr anniversary, he began to message her on Instagram, according to the lawsuit.
"When I sent the $ for your tardily brother, out of real respect for his service to this country, I didn't know y'all were a January 6th rioter," Baldwin said, according to the suit.
Roice "was never detained, arrested, charged with or convicted of any law-breaking associated with her attendance at the January 6, 2021, event in Washington, DC," the lawsuit said.
She responded to Baldwin, according to the adjust, that, "Protesting is perfectly legal in the country and I've already had my sit downward with the FBI. Thanks, take a dainty day!"
Baldwin responded, the lawsuit says, with, "I don't think so. Your activities resulted in the unlawful destruction of regime property, the death of a law enforcement officer, an assault on the certification of the presidential election. I reposted your photograph. Good luck."
CNN has reached out to Baldwin'southward attorney for annotate.
Approximately 20 minutes after Baldwin posted Roice'due south "Instagram feed," she "began to get hostile, aggressive, hateful messages from Baldwin's followers," the accommodate alleges.
Baldwin's Instagram post that he later deleted said, "Lots of Trumpsters chiming in here with the electric current weep that the attack on the Capitol was a protest, (a more peaceful form of which got a lot of other protestors imprisoned) and an exercise in republic. That'southward bullsh*t."
His post connected and said, "I did some inquiry. I found, on IG, that this woman [Roice McCollum] is the blood brother (sic) of one of the men who was killed," in Kabul Transitional islamic state of afghanistan.
"I offered to send her sis-in-law [Jiennah McCollum] some $ every bit a tribute to her late blood brother, his widow and their child. Which I did. As a tribute to a fallen soldier. Then I find this. Truth is stranger than fiction," his mail added.
The accommodate says Baldwin, "unequivocally understood that by forwarding Roice's Instagram feed to two.4 million like-minded followers and posting his commentary would event in the onslaught of threats and hatred that it did."
Hours after Baldwin's post, Lance's other sister, Cheyenne, and his widow, Jiennah, began receiving "hateful messages and fifty-fifty death threats," according to the suit.
"Neither Cheyenne nor Jiennah" were in Washington, DC on Jan 6, 2021, the suit added.
Jiennah received a message Th calling her a "racist" co-ordinate to one of the family'due south attorneys, Dennis Postiglione. Jiennah is Black, Postiglione said in a phone phone call.
"I gratefully supported the gofundme entrada while simultaneously non knowing the adult female I approached is an insurrectionist. I call up that's...remarkable," Baldwin said, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says that Baldwin is "keenly aware" of the weight of his fame and notoriety. The family is asking for a trial by jury, according to the suit. In addition to negligence and defamation, they are besides suing Baldwin for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
"[R]egardless of a person's politics, what Baldwin did here should never exist allowed to stand up. He is one of the almost recognizable people in the land and has a social media post-obit v times the population of the Land of Wyoming. He abused that platform willingly and put the McCollum's through hell at a time when they had but begun to cope with Rylee's decease," Postiglione said in a news release.
This is not the just legal battle Baldwin is embroiled in.
Final month, the actor turned over his cell telephone to law enforcement officials equally part of their investigation into the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust," CNN has previously reported. He is also being sued by coiffure member Serge Svetnoy for negligence.
Baldwin had previously said he would "never point a gun at anyone and then pull the trigger," during an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos in December. According to court documents, Baldwin said he believed the gun did not take live rounds in information technology. His attorney has said Baldwin is cooperating with government in the investigation of the fatal shooting.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/21/us/alec-baldwin-sued-defamation/index.html
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