Lawsuit: Dismissed Dusty_3 v. _Dark_Helmet_ [2020] FCR 11

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Dusty_3

Dusty_3

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Dusty_3
Dusty_3
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COURT OF DEMOCRACYCRAFT

Dusty_3
Plaintiff

v.

_Dark_Helmet_
Defendant

COMPLAINT
The Plaintiff, Dusty_3, complains against the Defendant, _Dark_Helmet_; as follows:

Earlier today, Dark Helmet left the NAP. He instantly joined the DRP afterwards. Not long after, a poll was made for leadership of each party. The poll had 3 questions on it. The first and second question both asked which Party do you prefer. The first one listed all the leaders of each party but in the second question, the NAP leader was changed. They changed only the NAP leader, in an attempt to undermine my leadership of my poilical party. Dark Helmet made a false statement made to harm my reputation within my party. This is clear slander, which is why im suing.
Click to expand...
I. PARTIES
1. Dusty_3 a citizen of DemocracyCraft
2. _Dark_Helmet_, a citizen of DemocracyCraft

II. FACTS
1. The Defendant, _Dark_Helmet_, gave out false information in an attempt at hurting Dusty's leadership in his party.

III. CLAIMS FOR RELIEF
1. Because the Defendant slandered Dusty, the Plaintiff will sue for damages to their reputation


IV. PRAYER FOR RELIEF
The Plaintiff seeks the following from the Defendant:
1. Compensatory damages for Reputation, $500
2. Removal of poll and results

Evidence:
Screenshots:
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(FYI the above one has a different time as i couldnt access DC's discord so someone else sent it who has a different timezone.)
 
The court hereby summons the defendant, _Dark_Helmet_, to testify. If they do not testify within 24 hours of this summons, a default judgement will be made in favor of the plaintiff.
 
IN THE COURT OF DEMOCRACYCRAFT
ANSWER TO COMPLAINT

Dusty_3
Plaintiff

v.

_Dark_Helmet_
Defendant

Case no: 07-2020-04

I ANSWER TO COMPLAINT
1. All of the evidence provided in the Plaintiff's opening statement are true to some degree.
2. However, the assertion that the poll was designed intentionally to damage the Plaintiff's reputation is incorrect.

II DEFENCES
1. No defamatory or slanderous statements were made, as the poll merely asks a hypothetical question.
2. The above-named hypothetical question is a question that asks, if Mhadsher101 were the leader of the NAP instead of Dusty_3, how would the respondent vote. As Mhadsher101 pulled in the largest number of votes for the NAP in this most recent election and is a visible figure within the NAP, Juris Civilis and I consider him a leader of the party. The question attempts to explore the effects of the party having a different standard-bearer.
3. The Plaintiff asserts that my personal political affiliation has impacted my decisions in this matter. This assertion is incorrect, as the poll in question is an attempt at scientific data collection, and my personal feelings about politics has not impacted either its composition or its conduct. Furthermore, I am not acting on behalf of the DRP or any political party, and the results of the poll will be released for free for public use.
4. Additionally, the Plaintiff asserts that the poll being conducted is attempting to spread false information. This is also incorrect. The question as written merely asks that, assuming each of the players listed in the questions were leader of their respective parties, would that change the respondent's vote. Nothing in how the question is asked or delivered outright states any player is actually the leader of any political party.
5. Finally, the Plaintiff has provided no credible evidence of actual damage to their reputation.

DATED: Thu. 23 July 2020
 
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The court hereby summons both parties to provide witnesses and/or evidence in this case. If either party has witnesses, they must respond to this case with a list of witnesses they choose to question and the set of questions that they would like to ask each witness. If a party does not have witnesses, they may reply with the statement "This party has no witnesses to question." In addition, both parties must provide all evidence at this stage. If a party does not have evidence, they may reply with the statement "This party has no additional evidence to bring to the court's attention." If either party does not reply with witnesses and/or evidence within 24 hours, a default judgement will be made.
 
Your Honour,

1. The gentleman may state that it was only hypothetical, however, the question in the poll was very clear. It listed all 3 party's with their leaders, then on the second question they only change my party's leader name.

2. If the gentleman wishes to state that he believed Mhad was worthy to be "a leader" then he should state that in the question on the poll. the poll in no way mentions that it's hypothetical or that Mhad is considered "a leader", rather it suggests the opposite.

3. Here below is the exact question, and how it lists Mhad as "Leader - NAP", not "A leader of the NAP" it's listed as "Leader". I made him aware of this but he denied to change the language of the question, prompting me to believe it as an attempt at slander.
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4. Slander is the intent of a person to do damage to one's reputation. The poll clearly suggests an intent to damage or undermine my position as leader of the NAP. I do not need evidence of a harmed reputation for slander.

5. Slander is a "purposeful false statement to harm one's reputation". Now I asked him to change the wording, and he did not, that means its purposeful. The question states Mhad as leader of the NAP, which he is not and Dark was notified of this before I filed the lawsuit, this means its a false statement. Ergo he presented people a false statement which he refused to amend, meaning its purposeful. This false statement has already caused an uproar in my party which ill show below. Meaning it was a question that has harmed my reputation. And it is seen as purposeful. Your honour, it is clear he did this on purpose, it is clear its a false statement, and it is clear that it can damage my reputation that the gentlemen neglected to consider. The only conclusion I can draw is Slander.
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665
 
Your honour,
This party has no witnesses to question
 
Your honour,
I will also mention the damage it has caused to my party by sending through evidence of discomfort and worriedness from party members:
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Malicious intent seems to be the primary concern from the party
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I have crossed out the names to defend my fellow party members. i will however reveal if it is absolutely necessary and i have consent from the party members
 

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Your Honour,
If the court is alright with this, I would like to have nutzucer as my co-council in this lawsuit.
 
Your honor, I would like to present the following to the court:

1. The question the Plaintiff feels is slander does not make any factual statement. Rather, it asks what party the respondent is most likely to vote for. The name of the leader of the NAP being changed was solely to measure the effects a different leader (as a scientific variable) and not to claim that Mhadsher101 is, in fact, the leader of the NAP.

2. The leaders listed in the above-named question were chosen by what I thought would be best for research purposes and not based on any objective reality.

3. In response to only the leader of the NAP being changed - the NAP, at the time of publishing the survey, was the only party that had a candidate that had a high enough profile in the public consciousness to be considered a credible alternate leader. I mentioned in my response to the civil complaint Mhadsher101's vote total as evidence of this public profile. The Plaintiff could rebut this by claiming that SimplyMadi attained the same vote total. However, SimplyMadi no longer holds a seat in the legislature and is in fact a member of the executive.

4. In response to the question not being changed after the form was published - changing the wording of the question mid-survey could change the interpretation of the question in the respondent's mind, make them choose a different response, and therefore render the survey's data unusable. This would have been a waste of both my and the survey respondents' time and effort.

5. If divisions and anxiety exist within the NAP, they were present before the publication of the survey. The survey did not create these anxieties, but it may have provided a catalyst for discussion of them. However, this was not the intent of the survey.

6. The Plaintiff has provided no evidence of intent on my part to damage his reputation.


In addition, I would like to call the honorable Krix to the stand and ask him the following question:

1. If a question had existed in which the leader of the DRP had been changed to another name, would you feel slandered?



I would also like to point out to the court that the conversation referenced in the Plaintiff's complaint has been deleted from the NAP discord.
 
I would have no issue with you mentioning another senior member of my party as a possible alternative to see how the public reacts, I however would prefer this was reasonable and it was actually viable and was an actual viable leader within the party.
 
Your honour,
I have some new witnesses that have come forth if it pleases the court
I would like to call up:
Mhadsher
HugeBob
_Zab_
008kevin
JB3335

Question
How did the poll or statement affect the party or members involved in it?
 
This did cause arguments inside the party, caused stress and other things which could have resulted in very valuable members leaving the party, causing damage to the party's reputation
 
This caused confusion with people questioning if I should be the party leader, which wasn't happening before. This just caused unnecessary strife in Dusty's position as leader. I was in no way an alternate credible leader before, I was just a popular candidate. Nobody previous to the poll questioned if I should be the leader. I see no valid reasoning for that poll to include me as a possible alternative except only to cause new and unnecessary disagreement.
 
Mhadsher is an excellent Representative, but he has never indicated an intention to replace Dusty. The tensions did NOT exist beforehand. But the facts stand that Mhad received the most votes in our party and our leader (singular) was temporarily barred from elections, so it wouldn't be difficult for someone to suggest that Mhad should take over as leader. If the poll truly wanted to experiment with hypothetical changes in leadership they also would have replaced the DRP leader as he was not the most popular member of his own party. This was a clear attempt to inspire an internal power struggle within the NAP.
 
Hello Your Honor,

To be honest with you I would have thought this case would be a breeze, maybe there would be a chance to settle without it going passed the preliminary stage, yet here we are.
While this isn't going to be a lengthy testimony, it will be very comprehensive.

I would first like to bring to your Honor's attention to the latin principle 'res ipsa loquitur'. Tough this principle is traditionally used in negligence cases, I believe has some value in the over all perspective of the plaintiff. 'Res ipsa loquitur' being the principle that the mere occurrence of some types of accident is sufficient to imply negligence.

The mere occurrence of some types of accidents is sufficient, when loosely translated to fit this case the mere occurrence of the act in question is sufficient enough to imply negligence, or in other words intent. Intent being to subconsciously alter the result of the poll. How simple would it have been to instead of putting the presumed or most likely leader of the party to put the correct and most accountable leader. From my understanding the poll was created to give an accurate representation of the forefront of political parties during the testing period.

This leads me to my cross examination of The Honorable Krix, do you believe that given the circumstances of your current stake in the DRP, if your name was replaced with someone else's of the party in the same poll, would you believe that for a fraction of a second the responders assume that you are no longer that parties leader? Because I certainly believe at the very least responders would bring into question, if not out aloud then in their mind, why has the name changed. Such self questioning would certainly alter the result of the poll, I may dare to go as far to say that it alter the response to the poll more so in favour of the defendants own party.

To bring this to a close, whether the intent is to alter results or defame the plaintiff. It is clear that the actions of the defendant have caused irreparable doubt to the leadership of the party. How is this a clear representation of the political parties status. its safe to say, this poll is not a fit example of data to base "research".


You Honor, in light of the above testimony of called witnesses we would like to close with these very intricate proceedings with the above witness statements. However, We apologise for going back on our previous conclusion of no witnesses, but our circumstances changed dramatically in the hours post that statement. We also deplore the lack of compartmentalisation of this suit, we understand that it makes it hard to deduce a conclusion. The above statements highlight our whole argument line that the defendants actions cause unnecessary complications in the structure of the party as well as the perceived leadership, which have obviously altered the polls results, thus rendering it useless.

We highlight again, if it weren't for the defendants lack of accuracy, we wouldn't be here today discussing the outcomes of this tedious poll.

Your Honor, we rest.

Your Honor, in light of unforeseen circumstances on my part, I will be resigning as co-counsel, effective immediately.
 
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If my name was replaced on the poll, honestly I would not mind I probably would question it but I doubt it would involve any malice of dividing the party, It may well be that everyone knows the leader is good and popular, therefore there is no point in putting them on the poll. As far as I'm aware the whole point of this poll is to find out who is fit for leadership positions within the party and who is not.

Personally I would have preferred if Dark had mentioned more if my members on the poll as I would be interested to see how the public react go them in leadership positions.
 
If it pleases the Court,

Your Honor, throughout the course of this trial, the Plaintiff has tried to distract from the issue at hand. They have argued that the question in the poll I conducted was purposely designed to, and in fact did, damage the internal functioning and external reputation of the NAP. They have even called multiple witnesses to testify to that effect. However, this is not the issue being tried here. The issue at hand is whether or not a question in a poll I released was slanderous.

In order to win a slander claim, the Plaintiff must demonstrate two things. These things are one, they must demonstrate actual damage done to their reputation, and two, they must demonstrate intent to cause damage. The gentleman has done neither. They have failed to produce any credible evidence that damage was done to their reputation. The Plaintiff has also failed to provide any evidence at all of malicious intent on my part. Instead, they have tried to make the case about the NAP and the alleged damage that my poll has done to it.

Furthermore, the Plaintiff's co-council has attempted to apply the principle of res ipsa loquitur as it applies to negligence on my part to constitute intent. The laws of DemocracyCraft specifically define slander as " A purposeful false statement of a player to cause damage to that player's reputation. " Such a definition implicitly rules out negligence as a cause of slander by requiring a deliberate action. Therefore, negligence is not only not applicable, but is also entirely irrelevant. Following this logic, the Plaintiff has no legal ability to claim negligence constitutes intent.

Finally, a decision in the Plaintiff's favor in this case would set a precedent under which party leaders, or indeed any individual, could seek to restrict the communication of political information (a right specifically provided for in Section IV of the Constitution) and would, in one fell swoop, eliminate an entire aspect of election polling by disallowing questions that ask about alternate party leaders.

It is for the reasons highlighted above that I humbly request the Court finds in favor of the Defense.
 
Your Honor,

The defendant keeps referring slander REQUIRES damage to my reputation and that my party does not relate to this. However he is very wrong, slander is the intent to damage a reputation, and my party was damaged by his poll question, that in turn damaged me and my reputation. Also, did he read the actual bill on slander that I made months ago? The statement " A purposeful false statement of a player to cause damage to that player's reputation." is only part of the bill and there is more to the definition. "Slander can damage a citizens reputation." The keyword here is "can". It does not require a damaged reputation, only an attempt to attack it.

Now for my proof of intent? The defendant said it for me. Slander determined not just by the intent but how others will see it. His defence states that ”public consciousness“ can consider mhadsher an “alternate leader”. So he recognises the public sees mhadsher as an alternate leader but still post the poll anyway, stating that NAP's option is - "Leader - mhadsher". This is proof of intent, he recognises the public will see had as an alternate leader, he knows that his statement caused an uproar, and yet he refused to change. He purposefully attacked my party to damage my reputation.

Another proof of intent is how only the NAP leader has changed. "the name of the leader of the NAP being changed was solely to measure the effects a different leader (as a scientific variable)"(dark_helmet)if it was a variable used to see how it would change the poll why was it not tried with every party as a 'scientific variable'. why was the NAP singled out? if they are claiming it was a scientific variable it should have been tried with every party to be truly 'scientific'. The NAP was targeted to effect my party.

To sum up, the defendant recognised the public sees Mhadsher as an alternate leader and he singled my party out with a change in the poll. This is intended to attack my party and result in harming me. I requested he change the language of it, he refused so I ask the court, rule in my favour to get the language of the poll changed and fair compensation for lost time, fees and damaged reputations.

Thank you, your honor
 
Your honor, I would like to object to the Plaintiff's above statement. Having already rested his case, the Plaintiff is speaking out of turn.
 
Sorry for the confusion your honour, I believe my co council meant he rested his statement. If I spoke out of turn, that's my fault, but I believed I was fine.
 
The court hereby summons both parties to make their closing statements within 24 hours. If only one does, a default judgement will occur.
 
Your honour,
I summarize
- The defendant intended to harm myself and NAP through the poll, reasons shown below:
- Defendant knowingly presented Mhadsher as an alternate leader to NAP
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- Defendant knew people perceive Mhadsher as an alternate leader but decided to post a damaging statement
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I request the court ask the defendant to remove the statement or change the statement "National Alliance Party (Senior Member - Mhadsher101)"
I request the defendant compensate $500 for damaged Party, legal fees and time lost due to stressed-out members of NAP.

I thank the court for hearing the case, I respect any decision.

Unless more is asked from the court or the defendant, I rest.
 
Your honor, much of my argument in this case has already been made, however I will provide a brief summary of the points in this case.

The Plaintiff has insisted that I intended only to damage their reputation with my survey. However, they have provided no evidence of said intent. The best they have done is point to my refusal to change a question mid survey as evidence of my intent to damage their reputation. This argument ignores both my stated reason for not changing the poll (the reason being scientific integrity - changing a question mid survey would render it useless) and the reality that such a refusal is a refusal to change a survey and contains no subtext or malicious suggestion at all.

Furthermore, the question under litigation here is phrased in a way that is clear to anyone at all familiar with election polling to be hypothetical. The only reason party leaders were listed on the question was to clarify the variable being studied. There was no intent to damage the Plaintiff's reputation. There was no malice in my refusal to change a question mid survey. The only conclusion that can be reached by the evidence presented by the Plaintiff is that I was trying to study the effects of changing the leader of the NAP in a scientifically rigorous way.

Additionally, the testimony of the leader of another political party (The honorable Krix of the DRP) has stated repeatedly that no reasonable party leader would be harmed by the inclusion of alternate leaders in a poll. In fact, the testimony has shown that the inclusion of other leaders in a poll should be beneficial to a political organization's leader.

Your Honor, I can go over the evidence over and over again, but the only further argument I can make would be to again re state the Plaintiff's failure to carry the burden of proof. They rely solely on my refusal to comply with their demands as evidence of intent on my part.

I ask to be permitted to release the results of the poll in question.

Your Honor, I rest.
 
This case is now under review and a decision will be made within 24 hours. If anyone other than the presiding Judge speaks on this thread, they will be held in contempt:
 
Case dismissed: Plaintiff has left DemocracyCraft permanently.
 
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