Legacy Matters

S11 million for causing additional emotional distress at soldiers' funerals

I am very happy with the results of this law suit and pleased that the jury found an invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Jury Awards Father Nearly $11 Million in Funeral Protestors Case

The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family's privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine's funeral.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine's father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa.

The defendants are the hateful people from  the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas who go around the country protesting at soldiers' funerals with signs saying "Thank Go for dead soldiers" and "Thank God for IEDs because they think the US war dead are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

I wrote about this suit last year Funeral Protesters Sued
We think it's a case we can win because anyone's funeral is private," Snyder lawyer Sean Summers said. "You don't have a right to interrupt someone's private funeral."

In A Soldier They Called "Pipes, I wrote about the dozens of uniformed and plain clothes cops who stood baring the sight of the protesters from the family and gathered throng of several thousand including the Governor in an outpouring of sympathy and patriotism in Marblehead, MA.

For the Patriot Guard Riders, every funeral of an American soldier  became a mission to show respect and to shield the mourning family from the protesters.