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Punitive Damages Reduced In Funeral Picketing Case

By Howard Friedman

Yesterday in Snyder v. Phelps, (D MD, Feb. 4, 2008), a Maryland federal district judge ruled on a number of post-tial motions filed by Westboro Baptist Church and its leaders in the suit brought against them for their picketing of the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder. (See prior posting.) In November, a jury awarded compensatory damages of $2.9 million and punitive damages of $8 million for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress growing out of the anti-gay picketing and website postings by defendants.

The court rejected defendants' claim that Lance Cpl. Snyder had become a public figure and his funeral a public event when his father filed a notice of the funeral in the obituary section of the local newspaper. A finding that he had become a public figure would have given greater First Amendment protection to defendants' speech. The court also rejected defendants' claim that their comments and actions were protected by the Free Exercise clause. However the court, on due process grounds, reduced the amount of the punitive damages award against each of the four defendants from a total of $8 million to a total of $2.1 million.

Yesterday's Baltimore Sun, reporting on the decision, indicated that a pending appeal to the 4th Circuit remains on hold until the district judge decides that amount of bond that defendants must post in order to proceed with the appeal. A hearing on that issue is scheduled for March 6.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on February 05, 2008 (boomark / email).