Victoria, Australia — For the second time around an umpire for junior league football, Philip Gluyas, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s— won a defamation lawsuit against an anti-autism blogger. Gluyas was awarded $50,000 in damages and $6,900 in interest in the lawsuit he filed against anti-autism blogger Oliver Canby.
Gluyas first won a separate anti-defamation lawsuit against another anti-autism blogger, John Best of New Hampshire, where he was awarded $54,000 in damages in 2013. Best claimed in his ‘hating autism‘ website that AFL should he warned that Gluyas was a “psychopath with a deranged nature“, and that the junior league umpire was violent due to a serious mental illness that he was suffering from.
The latest defamation case Gluyas won, on the other hand, stemmed from a blog post by Canby on his ‘Autism is Bad‘ site, entitled ‘A Call for Violence Against Phil Gluyas‘— wherein the anti-autism blogger stated:
“I don’t just want him to die I want him to suffer it has to be done right. After you are done decapitating him, please mount his head on a stick and roast it over an open fire. The rest of him can be dismembered and tossed into the ocean.”
“If any perpetrator is charged with a crime as a result of this, I will fully pay for your legal defense and present this to the courts as justifiable homicide.”
Canby offered $500 to anyone who was willing to carry out the crime for him.
Supreme Court Justice Jack Forrest said on his ruling that he considers the implications of Canby’s threat against Gluyas a serious matter. He told:
“I consider that that defamatory imputations are serious and that Mr Gluyas is entitled to an award of damages that vindicates his reputation and standing.”
Justice Forrest said that it was only appropriate that Gluyas be awarded $50,000 in damages plus $6,900 in interest.
Contributed by Althea Estrella Violeta
Source: The Age Judge awards Philip Gluyas $50,000 in defamation lawsuit against US anti-autism blogger Oliver Canby