[Warning - Trigger Topics] Chris Avellone wins libel suit against accusers

[CTPhipps]

Yeah, I think much was said and nothing else is being contributed.

[Ragged Robin]

Yeah I'm going to walk away from this conversation, I've said my piece and it's getting toxic and unproductive.

[CTPhipps]

it isn't a need i dont really need to engage in the discussion full stop since I'm not involved at any level. My opinion is that theirs zero evidence that Chris did anything and so far you've only really provided speculation on some aspects of the retraction which can be comfortably dismissed out of hand since its speculation.

Do you have anything at all to back up your implicit view chris is a rapist?

This is close to a personal attack. Please dial it down as well. People may believe in Chris Avellone's innocence as they will or but they may also believe in his guilt.

[Ragged Robin]

Yeah, you are. And you're doing a very annoying thing that happens in these sorts of discussions: you claim a need to abide by courtroom principles in a public conversation at one point, and when the complexities of civil court differ from criminal court come up, you shift standards around because the black-and-white presumption of innocence principle doesn't apply to every situation.
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it isn't a need i dont really need to engage in the discussion full stop since I'm not involved at any level. My opinion is that theirs zero evidence that Chris did anything and so far you've only really provided speculation on some aspects of the retraction which can be comfortably dismissed out of hand since its speculation.

Do you have anything at all to back up your implicit view chris is a rapist?

[CTPhipps]

Yeah, you are. And you're doing a very annoying thing that happens in these sorts of discussions: you claim a need to abide by courtroom principles in a public conversation at one point, and when the complexities of civil court differ from criminal court come up, you shift standards around because the black-and-white presumption of innocence principle doesn't apply to every situation.

Take a warning not to try to police other posters. if you have an issue with them, report them.

[Heavy Arms]

Am I?

Yeah, you are. And you're doing a very annoying thing that happens in these sorts of discussions: you claim a need to abide by courtroom principles in a public conversation at one point, and when the complexities of civil court differ from criminal court come up, you shift standards around because the black-and-white presumption of innocence principle doesn't apply to every situation.

Truth is an affirmative defense to defamation in most states, not an element that the plaintiff has to prove.

Illinois, where the lawsuit was moved to after the California part was ruled to be the wrong jurisdiction, does require the plaintiff to prove the statement was false.

[CTPhipps]

https://chrisavellone.medium.com/joint-statement-from-karissa-barrows-kelly-bristol-and-chris-avellone-3b2138e5837f

Avellone had this to say:

“I appreciate the willingness of Ms. Barrows and Ms. Bristol to work with us in addressing issues within the game community, and their advocacy is to be commended and supported.

There are still many very real challenges that we face but am confident we can face them together.

In the spirit of these goals, I would ask everyone to respect the privacy of Ms. Barrows and Ms. Bristol and use this opportunity as a means to listen to all voices in improving our culture and our communities.”

He also has a testimonial of what he says happened. Which, again, take as only one side of the story: https://chrisavellone.medium.com/its...e-2fe5db836746

[CTPhipps]

Truth is an affirmative defense to defamation in most states, not an element that the plaintiff has to prove. If you sue someone in defamation, all you have to prove is that the defendant made the statement and that the statement damaged your reputation. It’s up to the defendant to prove that the statement is true; you are not required to prove that the defendant lied.

While true, the fact that the most common defense against defamation is that the accusation is true and the subject have made their retraction is exactly also what would have been done should the subject have lied.

Which is not saying that they did (they deny they did--but also deny they accused Chris Avelone of sexual assault).

[Amethyst]

Truth is an affirmative defense to defamation in most states, not an element that the plaintiff has to prove. If you sue someone in defamation, all you have to prove is that the defendant made the statement and that the statement damaged your reputation. It’s up to the defendant to prove that the statement is true; you are not required to prove that the defendant lied.

[Ragged Robin]

But you're inherently making presumptions about their innocence or guilt if you make a presumption about him being innocent.

Saying that your presume Avellone is truthful in claiming they lied about him in a defamatory fashion means you presume that they're guilt. You can't coherently have it both ways were you presume he's innocent and make no presumptions about their allegations. If you feel you have to presume that Chris is innocent (even though this is a civil defamation case he filed and innocence isn't really the standard anyway), then you logically have to be speculating about his accusers. You can't really have it both ways here.

Presuming innocence on one said, and claiming you're making no speculative statements is not a sound argument.

Am I? Since the statement is retracted theirs nothing for me to comment on in terms of innocence or guilt. At worst you can try to argue you're personally dissatisfied with the resolution which doesn't mean a great deal.

Actually I can, since theirs no standing statement and an outright retraction I don't have to speculate. I'm barely presuming chris' innocence because currently he isn't accused of anything to be innocent off at worst you can say he was accused of something but currently isn't.

Agreed because its not an arguement, its a statement. Chris isnt currently accused of anything-the accusation was retracted so I don't have to speculate on anything and am deliberately not doing so.

[Heavy Arms]

But you're inherently making presumptions about their innocence or guilt if you make a presumption about him being innocent.

Saying that your presume Avellone is truthful in claiming they lied about him in a defamatory fashion means you presume that they're guilt. You can't coherently have it both ways were you presume he's innocent and make no presumptions about their allegations. If you feel you have to presume that Chris is innocent (even though this is a civil defamation case he filed and innocence isn't really the standard anyway), then you logically have to be speculating about his accusers. You can't really have it both ways here.

Presuming innocence on one said, and claiming you're making no speculative statements is not a sound argument.

[Ragged Robin]

That includes presuming innocence though. As there's no default presumption of innocence (in fact the presumption on innocence is on the two women as the one's being sued), and no facts to determine certainty, saying that you (specific or general) "have" to presume he's innocent is just a form of justifying one way of speculating on the matter.

Actually in terms of conversation their is a presumption of innocence I can't pressume guilt especially if the statement is withdrawn. I havnt really speculated one way ot another on the topic to the point I've been deliberately not writting obvious counter arguements to some of your points since it'd ultimately be speculation.

Since the statement was retractretracted their isn't a need to presume innocence (or guilt) on the two women's since ultimately theirs nothing to presume about. I could theoretically speculate but I'm disinclined to do so. Especially on such a heated subject

[Heavy Arms]

That includes presuming innocence though. As there's no default presumption of innocence (in fact the presumption on innocence is on the two women as the one's being sued), and no facts to determine certainty, saying that you (specific or general) "have" to presume he's innocent is just a form of justifying one way of speculating on the matter.

[Ragged Robin]

A lack of a simple conclusion does not mean there's a lack of simple truths in the story.



One side of the issue has used a legal procedure to ban the other side from informing us even if they wanted to. That's one of those actual simple facts here. The settlement didn't have to include an NDA, but it does.



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Correct. For example we have absolutely no proof chris is guilty of anything and a retraction of a previous accusation.

On the other we gave a retraction of a previous statement and anything beyond that is ultimatly speculation on our part.

[Heavy Arms]

I was under the impression that there was disagreement between Mitsoda and HLS over Avellone getting canned and Mitsoda ended up getting canned as a result

The only person to public imply this despite admitting lacking any direct knowledge of it was Avellone himself. Mitsoda, HLS, and Paradox have never said anything remotely backing up this idea. Mitsoda was also not the only person let go at that time, including another major member of the BL2 who didn't have a long history with Avellone.

Uh, this… sounds dangerous.

But, it isn't, because it's a civil case.

It's dangerous in criminal law, where the state have the benefit of a huge disparity in power - including the power to use violence to punish people - that makes the presumption on innocence an essential part of criminal justice standards.

Avellone didn't have to sue them. He decided it was in his best interest to. He didn't have to accept a settlement. He decided it was his best interest to. Legally speaking, individuals that settle cases a lot because they some find themselves in civil suits that often can in fact have that used against them. Just like juries in civil cases can use invoking 5th Amendment rights against someone in ways that wouldn't be allowed in criminal cases.

It's even less dangerous on a Internet forum where we only know about any of this because he worked on a video game a lot of us like from 20 years ago, and temporarily worked on its sequel before any of this came out.

we musn't forget,the women told us they were lying. whatever else is under scrutiny,whateve is still udnsicovered,the fact they lied is not,the fact they for whatever reason spoke falsehoods is undeniably true

They didn't tell us they were lying. They told us that their statements had unintended negative consequences for Avellone. Their official statements contain no admission of false statements.

This is not admitting to lying: "Anything we have previously said or written about Mr. Avellone to the contrary was not our intent. We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended."

Now, in a sane and logical world, they'd have to be lying, but US civil law doesn't operate that way. US civil law is a place where you can win a case by saying you absolutely lied, but as a known liar nobody would ever believe you, so anything you said couldn't be defamatory because no right-minded person would actually believe it to have damaged their opinion of someone else.

These sorts of boiler plate "we concede the case without actually admitting any wrong doing" responses are the norm, because as I said before, these settlements are about silencing the truth, not allowing the truth to get out.

Barrows and Bristol had to pay hundred(s) of thousands of dollars to Chris Avellone. It seems that if they had wanted to continue fighting, they had the money to do so, plus there are a lot of lawyers who are willing to accept pro bono work or at lower costs to defend women who were sexually assaulted.

Again, as noted, the lawyer fees Avellone was ordered to pay for Barrows and Bristol in California for part of this case that he lost was officially stated to be part of the payment the settlement includes (and the only explicit monetary damage Avellone was recovering in the settlement). That does not mean they had enough wealth to continue the case indefinitely.

Their is no simple truth here because theirs barely anything at all.

A lack of a simple conclusion does not mean there's a lack of simple truths in the story.

we have no idea of the finer details and none of the parties involved actually have an obligation to inform us.

One side of the issue has used a legal procedure to ban the other side from informing us even if they wanted to. That's one of those actual simple facts here. The settlement didn't have to include an NDA, but it does.

The thing he wanted from them was, "We not only don't think anything happened. We never accused him of it happening. It was all a big misunderstanding."

So not wanting anything to go beyond a retraction isn't a sign of a coverup, necessarily.

If this was true, his lawyers are guilty of misconduct for using a defamation suit to force an outcome instead of suing over what their client actually believed. Of course this happens all the time in defamation law despite attempts to stop it, but that's why at least a few of us here don't consider this outcome particularly exculpatory. He could have sued over intentional infliction of emotional distress (which doesn't put the truth at issue at all, like defamation cases) over the allegations being made when they were made and how they were made... but almost nobody gets sued over that because it comes with very low damages compared to defamation.

Basically, it's the civil version of purposefully overcharging a case to try to force a guilty plea on a lesser charge when the lesser charge should have been the charge in the first place. It's something that shouldn't happen, but our legal system encourages far more than it works to end.