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"Defamation was only one of the charges and it arose out of the privacy invasion."

The thread article only sites the charge of defamation as an issue decided by the jury in this case. The case may have risen out of an invasion of privacy, but there is no evidence before us that the privacy issue played any role in the jury's decision on the charge of defamation.

From my perspective there is only one question: Could remarks regarding "Nazi scare tactics, including tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn and putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their house" be reasonably construed as being anti-Semitic?

To me the answer is an unequivocal yes!

--Boot Hill

"Could remarks regarding "Nazi scare tactics, including tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn and putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their house" be reasonably construed as being anti-Semitic?"

That shows how little you actually understand about defamation....Remember, the Quigleys were not public figures. Their conversations were privileged. Their converstations were surreptitiously intercepted by a third party in violation of both State and Federal statutes, on the orders of the ADL.

"The case may have risen out of an invasion of privacy, but there is no evidence before us that the privacy issue played any role in the jury's decision on the charge of defamation."

No evidence from the article? But there is, BH:

But later authorities discovered the recordings became illegal just five days after they began when President Bill Clinton signed a new wiretap restriction into federal law.

In other words, the clandestine recordings were what was used by the Aransons, their lawyers and the ADL to defame the Quigleys. As such, those recordings constituted a crime in themselves, ie. invasion of privacy. And that invasion of privacy constituted not only a criminal offense, but a cause of action as well.

From the legal staff of the American Jewish Committee, a source sympathetic to the Aronsons and the ADL (even they don't claim that the Quigley's causes of action were limited only to defamation):

Trial in this case commenced April 3, 2000, and on April 28, 2000, a twelve-person jury found the defendants liable for defamation, invasion of privacy, false light invasion of privacy and violation of the Federal Wiretap Act. The agency’s liability under the wiretap act was based on the jury’s finding that the Aronsons’ attorneys had acted as agents of ADL in filing the Aronsons’ civil complaint against the Quigleys, which contained some excerpts of the intercepted conversations, even though no one at ADL had listened to the tapes or read transcripts of the intercepted conversations. The jury awarded $1.5million damages to the Quigleys to compensate them for economic and noneconomic injury. The jury also awarded $9 million in punitive damages. The district court refused to set the verdict aside or eliminate or reduce the damages.

So, now there is "evidence before us" that the privacy issue "played a role" (a central role, actually) in the jury's decision to reach the verdict that is the subject of this thread's article. Accodingly, you should have no trouble answering the questions I posed to you, since your objection was that those questions were not relevant to this case and its outcome.

My questions to you (in case you've forgotten) are:

2. Don't you agree with me that it's an outrage to surreptitiously tap, record and release the marital conversations of neighbors without their knowledge and consent? [post 82]

3.Don't you wonder what other matters the Quigleys were privately discussing during these illegally intercepted conversations? [post 87]

4. How would you feel about your neighbor wiretapping or bugging you and then revealing the substance of your private conversations in press conferences? [post 87]

Your objection as to relevance is a non-starter, as I just demonstrated in post 151.

NB. In case you didn't know, the wiretap complaint was the only cause of action that was federal. The other three, involving invasion of privacy and defamation, were violations of Colorado state law. And, as we know,

all four transgressions

and

2) the defendants failed in their appeals to both the 10th Circuit and the USSC.

To me the answer is an unequivocal yes!

The question "Could the remarks be reasonably construed as being anti-Semitic?" is different from the question of "Did the remarks rise to the level where they in fact WERE anti-Semitic?" On that second question, I must assume the answer is no. Because, if the remarks and speakers of the remarks were in fact anti-Semitic, then there is no defamation. Truth of statment is a defense to the civil claim of defamation, and these people won their suit against the ADL. The conclusion of the court is that the ADL defamed the plaintiff.

Further, in this case, the award was triple what was sought, which indicates to me that the court applied special damages, punitive in nature.

Now, you may disagree with the outcome, and your diffference then is with the court.