High Court has no time for this shit, tosses out defamation suit.

Noriyuki Yamaguchi has been involved in a lot of lawsuits over the past few years, both as a plaintiff and a defendant. In the most recent ruling of Yamaguchi’s legal battles, the Tokyo High Court has officially declared that it is legally permissible to call him a piece of shit.

The roots for this unusual judiciary development stretch back to 2015. That’s when, according to Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, Yamaguchi raped her in a hotel. Yamaguchi claims that the two instead had consensual intercourse, but Yamaguchi asserts that she was unconscious at the time. Following a civil suit filed by Ito, in 2019 Yamaguchi was ordered to pay her 3.3 million yen (approximately US$30,000 by exchange rates at the time). In retaliation to Ito’s claims, Yamaguchi filed a defamation suit against her, seeking 130 million yen as compensation for damage to his reputation.

Hearing of Yamaguchi’s countersuit, politician Akiko Oishi, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives, took to Twitter to condemn what she saw as an obvious attempt to intimidate Ito, calling it a “100 million-yen-plus SLAPP suit.” Oishi also opted to use less complex jargon than the acronym for a strategic lawsuit against public participation, calling Yamaguchi a kuso yaro, literally “shit guy,” or, more vernacularly, “a piece of shit.”

▼ Yes, once again we’re talking about kuso.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Yamaguchi, already having defamation litigation on his mind, then filed a suit against Oishi, seeking 8.8 million yen in compensation for her remarks. Following that trial, the court ruled that Oishi would have to pay Yamaguchi 220,000 yen, but Oishi appealed the decision, with the case ending up in the hands of the Tokyo High Court. On March 13, the High Court issued its decision, overturning the previous ruling, sweeping away the damages awarded to Yamaguchi, and dismissing his suit entirely. In explaining the ruling, presiding Chief Judge Maki Aizawa acknowledged that “piece of shit” is a phrase “lacking in dignity,” but that it is “a personal insult which cannot be judged as going beyond the bounds of [individual] opinion or commentary.”

As for Yamaguchi’s defamation countersuit against Ito, the most recent ruling is that Ito will have to pay him 550,000 yen, as her specific claim that she was drugged by Yamaguchi was ruled to be unsubstantiated. As far as Oishi calling him a piece of shit, though, he’s just going to have to live with his compensation for that being jack shit.

Source: Sankei Shimbun via Jin
Top image: Pakutaso
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