Click a Facebook ‘Like’ button? Defamation!

Call somebody a communist? $10,000 TWD fine!

Complain about salty beef noodles? JAIL AND $200,000 TWD FINE!

As Taiwanese society struggles to comprehend the depths a generation of Taiwanese princesses and little emperors will sink to to protect their precious feelings, an all-time low was reached last Thursday when an academic successfully sued a co-worker for calling him worthless.

So the story goes, back in March last year Taiwan National University (NTU) Department of Agricultural Economics professor Wu Pei-ing (吳珮瑛) was gasbagging to fellow head of the department Hsu Shih-hsun (徐世勳). They were probably talking about shoes or their hair… who knows.

Anyway, whatever they were talking about it was quite a loud conversation and drew the attention of fellow professor Jerome Geaun (官俊榮).

Geaun complained to Wu about the noise and “severely protested”  that Wu was speaking too loudly and asked her to lower her voice.

In response Wu told Geaun to go fuck himself keep out of matters that didn’t concern him. Geaun then again insisted that Wu keep her voice down which caused the 53 year-old dragon-lady to snap:

“Go report it to the police, to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) for noise pollution, OK?”

At this point the department head Hsu tried to settle things but the dispute escalated between the two. As words were exchanged, Geaun warned Wu that ‘her comments came very close to a personal insult’ and this seemingly resulted in Wu firing back:

Who do you think you are? You’re a worthless nobody.

Armed with a tape recording of the conversation and his tail between his legs, Geaun then ran off to the nearest court-house and filed a defamation suit.

Aw shucks, poor widdle diddums.

Why the court didn’t just throw this case out yet again escapes me but it appears that calling someone worthless is indeed libel in Taiwan. Siding with Geaun, the High Court sentenced Wu to either 10 days in jail or a $100,000 TWD ($3,390 USD) fine, suspended for two years.

Naturally Wu appealed the decision but the appeal was rejected.

Initially denying she’d insulted Geaun, Wu claimed she never insulted him – stopping short of asking who he thought he was. When Geaun produced a recording however, I guess the denial defence went out the window.

On a related note, I can’t help but ask who is going around recording arguments they have with people?! Quite obviously it appears that Wu was somewhat baited.

Whether there’s a history between Geaun and Wu is unclear but unless the recording was incidental (someone recording something else with their argument going on in the background), I’d consider it highly suspect…

That said, even with the recording how much of a bloody softcock is this Geaun guy. Jesus Christ, someone calls you worthless so you run off to the court and file a lawsuit?

Fuck me, put down the erotic Japanese comics son and grow some balls. I don’t like hearing the local dragon-women crap on about who knows what first thing in the morning either but you sir are too much.

After warning Wu that she was close to insulting him… it appears the anger caused by the insult fuelled the suit against Wu, rather than any genuine feeling of defamation occurring due to her remark.

Further evidence of this is that the pair couldn’t negotiate a mediation settlement. I mean seriously, how hard is it to settle something like this – unless of course you’re motivating is blind fury at someone insulting you.

If anything, Geaun’s lawsuit proves that he is indeed worthless. Not only that, but it seems to indicate that if they’ve got nothing better to do then entertain ‘WAAAH HE HURT MY FEELINGS’ cases like this, that Taiwanese High Courts are largely useless to.

Up next, Taiwan’s first ‘HE LOOKED AT ME FUNNY, I DEMAND ELEVENTY BILLION DOLLARS!’ lawsuit. Shouldn’t be too far off now…


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