How much can you be sued for for defamation or public insult?

Let’s say theoretically I accidentally told a driver to fuck off this morning after he beeped his horn at me whilst I and many others were crossing the road on the way to work. If he decided to sue me and somehow had proof, in the worst case scenario how much could he win?

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That’s not defamation, is it?

Oh

It’s a public insult, no idea what the max is but they generally cost 10~20K. The driver has to know who you are and then sue you first.

10-20k isn’t too bad.

Not worth worrying over.

In the story did you say it in English? Or chinese?
Also did the driver know you? If not no worry needed

The amount of people I’ve told to fuck off, I’m shocked I haven’t been sued.

There’s this utter dopey drip who INSISTS on walking on the road, even though there’s a perfectly good pavement meaning I need to veer further into the road on my bicycle to get around him, putting me in the way of Taiwan’s notoriously crap drivers, and especially the terrible bus drivers.

I hate him. He gets a “get on the fucking pavement” or, if I’m very annoyed that day, a “c*nt” each time I pass him by.

It’s like he’s playing the pavement is lava. He’s a moron. I see him most days going to work. He’s not even old and senile. He looks in his 20s.

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$30000 is the max fine. What I did was sue for the max and then negotiate down.

Mine was negotiated to $25000.

Neither party wants to go to court. Neither party wants criminal proceedings to begin. It’s lose lose. Defendant may lose more while plaintiff may not receive very much for the time and effort and lose much to the lawyer and court fees.

This is from experience. Take/pay the money and never look back.

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It’s amazing how many Taiwanese have so little spatial awareness.

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This isn’t a public insult and that use of the F word is not necessarily an insult to another. It was tested in court.

If there’s nobody else to witness it, it might fail in court too.

Found it.

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This post made no sense until I figured that there must be some American/British language thing going on. So Brits call pavement (the stuff roads are made with) something other than pavement, and call sidewalks “pavement”, right?

So ridiculous. What kind of snowflake sues over an F bomb? Although the Aussie also sounds like a bit of a dick.

It is funny that the police couldn’t put 2 and 2 together and realize “f___en” is just a slang alternative to “f___ing.”

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Yes, but. We know you can use the F word as an adjective as long as it’s not a direct insult. This is good precedent.

Similarly also decided in court that “干” on it’s own is not an insult, although I’d still advise against using it or the F bomb.

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Is that for sure? To me this sounds that if the police were more competent (or less indifferent) they would’ve realized the adjective form in the dictionary ends in -ing and the case could hypothetically go ahead.

Well. There isn’t such an equivalent in Chinese cause Chinese doesn’t conjugate. You can’t really say 幹食物. It just sounds like dry food instead of ‘fucking food’.

The police were competent in this case. They took the case. They made a court precedent out of it. Now you can use it as a defence as it’s in the books. This is exactly what should happen.

別幹騙我 doesn’t make any sense. There is no -ING in this way in Chinese.

Plenty of insults here though.

Curious if fuck offis considered an actual insult or more of a suggestion. It is directly saying anyone is something, so seems couldnt be used thay way. Its also not a threat.

I have always turned insults into a question in the assumption that i am simply asking if someone is stupid, blind etc. @Marco doyou think that stands up in court? In mandarin.

Obviously what I say is not legal advice.

Fuck off might be considered an insult based on context, but that might need to be proven in court. It’s highly unlikely that my friends will sue me for saying that to them jokingly.

This…needs an actual lawyer’s advice.

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It’s not actually an adjective here. Steven Pinker wrote an entire book about the use of profanity, and one whole chapter on the use of ‘fucking’ as a modifer. I can’t remember what his precise conclusion was - it was a bit complicated! - but it’s definitely not an adjective. What is clear, though, is that the word refers to the pavement and not the person. So the legal judgement got it right, at least.

Let’s go for a few drinks you and me.

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