Title: Funeral protest lawsuit: Westboro Baptist Church to pay $5M, not $10.9M Source:
www.eveningsun.com URL Source:http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_8174672 Published:Feb 8, 2008 Author:RICK LEE Post Date:2008-02-08 03:38:30 by Ferret Mike Keywords:None Views:387 Comments:11
Maryland District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett rejected the post-trial motions of the Rev. Fred Phelps, two of his daughters and his Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church on Monday but did cut the federal jury award to the father of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder from $10.9 million to $5 million.
In his 55-page opinion and order, Bennett affirmed the jury's verdicts against Phelps, the church, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Rebekah Phelps-Davis for invasion of privacy and intent to inflict emotional distress.
In October, the jury awarded Albert Snyder, a Spring Garden Township resident, $2.9 million in compensatory damages and $8 million in punitive damages for the church members' actions at his son's funeral in Westminster, Md., in 2006.
On Monday, Bennett ordered the compensatory damages to stand while reducing the punitive damages to $2.1 million. Bennett explained his decision partially resulted from the defendants' ability to pay the lesser amount.
Sean Summers, the York lawyer who represented Albert Snyder
free of charge, said they were "very happy" with Bennett's "thorough" analysis of the case "which is very favorable to us." He said they had expected Maryland case law would result in a reduction of punitive damages.
During the trial, Summers said, the defendants "disclosed $1 million in assets." He said he suspected that amount to be higher "but we don't think they have $5 million either."
Summers said bankrupting a defendant is not an acceptable legal intent, but "one of Mr. Snyder's goals has been to prevent them from terrorizing other families."
Lance Cpl. Snyder was killed March 3, 2006, in Iraq when his Humvee overturned as he was protecting a convoy. During his funeral a week later, Phelps and others held up signs that thanked God for dead soldiers and derided homosexuality. They told reporters they believed soldiers' deaths were the deserving result of America's tolerance of homosexuality.
"If we take all of their assets, then they won't be able to do that anymore," Summers said.
The jury had awarded Albert Snyder $1.5 million in punitive damages from each of the defendants. Bennett reduced that amount to $300,000 from Phelps, $1 million from Westboro Church, $600,000 from Phelps-Roper and $200,000 from Phelps-Davis.
Bennett deferred ruling on the defendants' request to postpone payment of the award pending their appeal before the Maryland Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. In accordance with Maryland court rules, defendants are required to post a bond equal to 120 percent of the award. The Phelps have asked for a waiver of the bond.
Bennett said he was "not inclined" to grant the postponement until the Phelps can establish "their ability" to post the bond "or other means to secure the total judgement."
Summers said posting the bond would be favorable to Snyder if the defense appeal fails.
"If we prevail on appeal, we collect the bond and we don't have to chase them for the money," he said.
Fred Phelps clashes with Rick Sanchez over Snyder verdict
Who cares if they don't? Freddie Phelps went from beating his wife and kids black and blue to beating up on homosexuals when he could no longer do it and had the same desire to victimize.
He also talks about his fight for civil rights for Negroes and it is well established he has a low regard for anything not White. He is a liar and a hypocrite.
The First Amendment works because one is responsible for their speech. He has no real point to make at these funerals, he just gets off on the torture of those grieving for their lost loved ones.
He also has picketed people he has targeted for personal reasons at their home and at work, and fishes for someone to physically assault him and the members of his kin that suffer from the Stockholm Syndrome and live in denial about the mental affliction of their patriarch.
I have no pity for Phelps, and the original award of approximately 10 million was fine with me.
IF he keeps doing what he is doing I hope he gets sued again and loses again. Lawsuits is a classic Fred Phelps tactic, he is only getting what he does done to him.
And like any bully, he hates it when people fight back and win.
Addicted to Hate: The Fred Phelps Story Chapter Two: Daddy's Hands
Mark Phelps feels nauseated whenever he remembers that night. He was hit over 60 times and his brother, Nate, over 200 with a mattock handle. Nate went into shock. Mark didn't. A boy who became a compulsive counter to handle the stress, Mark counted every stroke. His and Nate's. While their father screamed obscenities and his brother screamed in pain. Every 20 strokes, their mother wiped their faces off in the tub. Nate passed out anyway. That was Christmas Day.
Though he believes he should be the next governor of Kansas, Pastor Phelps has never believed in Christmas. A mattock is a pick-hoe using a wooden handle heavier than a bat. Fred swung it with both hands like a ballplayer and with all his might. "The first blow stunned your whole body," says Mark. "By the third blow, your backside was so tender, even the lightest strike was agonizing, but he'd still hit you like he wanted to put it over the fence. By 20, though, you'd have grown numb with pain. That was when my father would quit and start on my brother. Later, when the feeling had returned and it hurt worse than before, he'd do it again. "After 40 strokes, I was weak and nauseous and very pale. My body hurt terribly. Then it was Nate's turn. He got 40 each time. "I staggered to the bathtub where my mom was wetting a towel to swab my face. Behind me, I could hear the mattock and my brother was choking and moaning. He was crying and he wouldn't stop." The voice in the phone halts. After an awkward moment, clearing of throats, it continues: "Then I heard my father shouting my name. My mom was right there, but she wouldn't help me. It hurt so badly during the third beating that I kept wanting to drop so he would hit me in the head. I was hoping I'd be knocked out, or killed...anything to end the pain. "After that...it was waiting that was terrible. You didn't know if, when he was done with Nate, he'd hurt you again. I was shaking in a cold panic. Twenty-five years since it happened, and the same sick feeling in my stomach comes back now..." Did he? Come back to you?
"No. He just kept beating Nate. It went on and on and on. I remember the sharp sound of the blows and how finally my brother stopped screaming... "It was very quiet. All I could think of was would he do that to me now. I could see my brother lying there in shock, and I knew in a moment it would be my turn. "I can't describe the basic animal fear you have in your gut at a time like that. Where someone has complete power over you. And they're hurting you. And there is no escape. No way out. If your mom couldn't help you...I can't explain it to anyone except perhaps a survivor from a POW camp." Last year, Nate Phelps, sixth of Pastor Phelps' 13 children, accused his father of child abuse in the national media. The information was presented as a footnote to the larger story of Fred Phelps' anti-gay campaign. But the deep currents that lie beneath the apparent apple-cheeks of the Phelps' clan were stirring. A series of interviews with Nate resulted in an eyewitness account of life growing up in the Phelps camp. These reports contained allegations of persistent and poisonous child abuse, wife-beating, drug addiction, kidnapping, terrorism, wholesale tax fraud, and business fraud. In addition, Nate described the cult-like disassembly of young adult identities into shadow-souls, using physical and emotional coercion- coercion which may have been a leading factor in the suicide of an emotionally troubled teenage girl.
The second son, Mark Phelps, who according to his sisters was at one time heir to the throne of Fred, had refused comment during the earlier spate of news coverage. He and Nate have both left the Westboro congregation and now live within four blocks of each other on the West Coast. But, like the icy water that waits off sunny California beaches, the deepest currents sometimes rise and now Mark has surfaced with a decision.
"My father," says the 39 year-old, now a parent himself, "is addicted to hate. Why? I can't say. But I know he has to let it out. As rage. In doing so, he has violated the sacred trust of a parent and a pastor. "I'm not trying to hurt my father. And I'm not trying to save him. I'm going to tell what happened because I've decided it's the only way I can overcome my past: to drag it into the light and break its chains."
Mark believes that Fred Phelps, no longer able to hate and abuse his adult children if he hopes to keep them near, by necessity now must turn all his protean anger outward against his community. Mark has decided to tell the truth about his father so that others will be warned. He and his brother have now come forward with specific and detailed stories, alarming tales, ones that could be checked and have been verified. Mark's testimony supports Nate's previously, and both men's statements have been confirmed by a third Phelps' child. In addition, the Capital- Journal has uncovered documents which substantiate this testimony, and interviewed dozens of relevant witnesses who have confirmed much of this information. "One of my earliest memories...," the voice in the phone pauses, painful to remember: "was the big ol' German shepherd that belonged to our neighbors. One day it was in our yard and my father went out and blew it apart with his shotgun."
Mark says he has no memories prior to age five. "Living in that house was like being in a war zone, where things were unpredictable and things were very violent. And there was a person who was violent who did what he wanted to do. And that was to hurt people, or break things, or throw a fit, or whatever he wanted to do, that's what he did. And there was nobody there to say different."
One day when Mark was a teenager, he came home to find his mom sitting on the lip of the tub, blue towel on her head, her lips pursed with anger and hurt. "Do you know what your father did today?" she asked. To Mark, it felt surreal. His mother never spoke out nor vented her emotions. She seemed quite different just then.
He looked at his father. Pastor Phelps was standing across the room with his arms folded, smiling (the bathtub was in the parents' bedroom). "No," said Mark. "I don't know." His mother stood up and whipped the towel down her side. "He chopped my hair off," she announced, tears coming to her eyes. The son stood aghast at the grotesque head before him. His mother's former waist-length hair had been shorn to two inches- and even that showed ragged gouges down to the white of the scalp. "Why?" he asked. "Your father says I wasn't in subjection today," she replied. According to Mark and Nate, all of the Phelps children were terrified of their father: "Usually we had to worry what mood we'd find him in after school. You didn't make any noise or racket, or cut- up; you had to walk on eggshells, tiptoe around him; you didn't fight with your siblings; you did your jobs, performed your assigned tasks, and hoped not to draw his attention." If you did draw it and he was in a foul mood, say the boys, summary punishment at the hands of the dour pastor involved being beaten with fists, kicked in the stomach, or having one's arm twisted up and behind one's back till it nearly dislocated.
Sometimes Pastor Phelps preferred to grab one child by their little hands and haul them into the air. Then he would repeatedly smash his knee into their groin and stomach while walking across the room and laughing. The boys remember this happening to Nate when he was only seven, and to Margie and Kathy even after they were sexually developed teenagers. Nate recalls being taken into the church once where his father, a former golden gloves boxer, bent him backwards over a pew, body-punched him, spit in his face, and told him he hated him. Mark's very first memory in this life is an emotional scar: their mom had gone to the hospital to give birth to Jonathon. Mark remembers being very upset, since now they would be alone in the house with their father, his threatening presence left unmitigated by her maternal concern. Though only five, already Mark could use the phone and, one day while his father was out he dialed the number she'd left.
Read this exerpt from this piece about Phelps. It is a long one, but well worth checking out. The whole piece at that site is an eye opening read, and is only protected from Phelp's law suit operation because it is a court document and protected from any legal effort by Phelps to suppress. This is one evil bastard.