Muhammed V. Assisted Suicide Case Summary

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The court will likely hold Muhammed as a LPPF, and deny his cause of action in defamation against COMQWEST. In order to establish a defamation action, the defamatory article must be an intentional publication with set of false factual statements which caused injury to the victim. In this case, COMQWEST’s article has met the requirements, however, the court will likely hold Muhammed as a LPPF, so that he has to prove the COMQWEST acted with actual malice in publishing the defamatory article, that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Muhammed is a LPPF because, first, he was involved in two public controversies, the legalization of assisted suicide and the gubernatorial election; second, …show more content…
Kevorkian’s proposal, Muhammed sought to influence the outcome of legalization of assisted suicide. According to Muhammed’s interview “we all dressed in those skimpy little hospital gowns that cover nothing in back and wrapped chains around us to signify that Dr. K and the laws he advocated would leave the terminally ill exposed to die against their will.” The purpose of this protest was to persuade the White House not to legalize assisted suicide, and appealed to the public to prohibit assisted suicide. Therefore, Muhammed’s participation in the protest against legalization of assisted suicide in front of the White House was voluntary injection, because he was voluntarily injecting himself into public’s eyes and seeking to influence the outcome of that …show more content…
Even though Muhammed participated in the discussion by using his screen name of “DignifiedDying”, people can easily find out his full information by looking at his interview with the COMQWEST or his biography which posted by Muhammed himself on COMQWEST. Thus, knowing that he has already identified himself under his screen name, Muhammed still willingly participated in the discussion. Moreover, COMQWEST is a website with more than 500,000 plus members, although the chatroom allowed only 40 participants, all members of COMQWEST were able to view the discussion. Thus, Muhammed’s participation in the discussion has inserted himself into the public’s eyes. Furthermore, the online discussion was intended for people to debate about Connor’s recent controversial policy, and Muhammed’s purpose to participate in the discussion was to debate against those who disagreed with Connor. Thus, his participation could potentially affect the audiences’ voting decision, and consequently influence the outcome of the election. Therefore, Muhammed’s participation in the online discussion about Connor’s recent controversial policy was voluntary

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