1.9 KiB
Wellspring: Dehumanizing speech
[Apologia]: This cause of action used to be lie based on liability from the following premises: "In the same way that we define a minimally viable legal person for foreknowledge, experience and volition, we can also define such a concept for speech control. We define a minimal grade of human being and any statements in front of an AUDIENCE, which portray a person as being beneath that are grounds for CIVIL liability.". But it would have required the building of a massive framework of legal thought and precedent to define all of the concommitant concepts. Alternatively we could just make it about biologically innate attributes, so that we don't have to define such a difficult concept, so we chose this latter option. Otherwise we may have needed to define multiple such legal persons, one for children, another for men, another for women, etc.
[Apologia]: If we had gone the "portray as less than human" route, we would have to reason about what constitutes a statement that has the effect of portraying someone in a particular light, etc, etc. Very difficult. We would have to deconstruct and then fix in a definition, why slurs are harmful, etc, etc. Very difficult. I think it's best to just let the action lie for statements made about biologically innate attributes.
[Apologia]: This entire mechanism is experimental and I'm frankly not sure whether or not it will make it into the final version.
It shall be a defense if the statement being made about the person is factually true; for example, if a person is crippled, then making the statement that s/he is a cripple incurs no liability.
This form of liability only applies to biologically innate attributes.
So the action lies when:
- Statement is made concerning a biologically innate attribute.
- Statement is made in the presence of at least one 3rd party.
- Statement was not factually true.
- Statement caused plaintiff to suffer some form of harm/damages.