Adults dupe teen into MySpace-assisted suicide

[AlexM]

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It's worth noting that this girl's parents are partly at fault for letting her get so fat. Bad parenting led to a very unhappy child.

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It's not the parents fault shes fat, its corporations like McDonalds who are to blame for that. <font color="white">im kidding </font>

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BS. Her parents have complete control over her diet. Don't try to absolve them of doing a good job of raising their child. Plenty of parents do it just fine. I know if I ever have children they won't be getting fat and "corporations" aren't going to somehow make it happen behind my back.

[mbillie1]

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It's worth noting that this girl's parents are partly at fault for letting her get so fat. Bad parenting led to a very unhappy child.

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It's not the parents fault shes fat, its corporations like McDonalds who are to blame for that. <font color="white">im kidding </font>

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BS. Her parents have complete control over her diet. Don't try to absolve them of doing a good job of raising their child. Plenty of parents do it just fine. I know if I ever have children they won't be getting fat and "corporations" aren't going to somehow make it happen behind my back.

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I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic fwiw

[AlexM]

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It's worth noting that this girl's parents are partly at fault for letting her get so fat. Bad parenting led to a very unhappy child.

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It's not the parents fault shes fat, its corporations like McDonalds who are to blame for that. <font color="white">im kidding </font>

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BS. Her parents have complete control over her diet. Don't try to absolve them of doing a good job of raising their child. Plenty of parents do it just fine. I know if I ever have children they won't be getting fat and "corporations" aren't going to somehow make it happen behind my back.

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I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic fwiw

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Sorry, I spend too much time in Politics where such things are said seriously all too often.

[entertainme]

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It's worth noting that this girl's parents are partly at fault for letting her get so fat. Bad parenting led to a very unhappy child.

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It's not the parents fault shes fat, its corporations like McDonalds who are to blame for that. <font color="white">im kidding </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

BS. Her parents have complete control over her diet. Don't try to absolve them of doing a good job of raising their child. Plenty of parents do it just fine. I know if I ever have children they won't be getting fat and "corporations" aren't going to somehow make it happen behind my back.

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From the article:

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She was heavy and for years had tried to lose weight. She had attention deficit disorder and battled depression. Back in third grade she had talked about suicide, Tina says, and ever since had seen a therapist.

But things were going exceptionally well. She had shed 20 pounds, getting down to 175. She was 5 foot 5½ inches tall.

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This doesn't paint a picture of them shoving Big Macs down her throat. Food issues often come with depression. (It can be a form of self medication.)

You can lead. You can only have healthy snacks at home. You can encourage. You can't control even your own children 100%.

[AlexM]

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It's worth noting that this girl's parents are partly at fault for letting her get so fat. Bad parenting led to a very unhappy child.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not the parents fault shes fat, its corporations like McDonalds who are to blame for that. <font color="white">im kidding </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

BS. Her parents have complete control over her diet. Don't try to absolve them of doing a good job of raising their child. Plenty of parents do it just fine. I know if I ever have children they won't be getting fat and "corporations" aren't going to somehow make it happen behind my back.

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From the article:

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She was heavy and for years had tried to lose weight. She had attention deficit disorder and battled depression. Back in third grade she had talked about suicide, Tina says, and ever since had seen a therapist.

But things were going exceptionally well. She had shed 20 pounds, getting down to 175. She was 5 foot 5½ inches tall.

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This doesn't paint a picture of them shoving Big Macs down her throat.

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Yes it does. Sure, they're trying to fix the problem now, but they let it happen in the first place.


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Food issues often come with depression. (It can be a form of self medication.)

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This is backwards. Depression comes from being fat. Yes, lots of depressed people eat, but we're talking about a child here and there's no way that she got depressed before she got fat. She's probably been fat for several years and 8 year olds pretty much aren't depressed. When you see a child this age who is depressed and very fat, it's very, very obvious which is the cause and which is the effect.

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You can lead. You can only have healthy snacks at home. You can encourage. You can't control even your own children 100%.

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BS. No, you can't control them 100%, but you can certainly keep them from getting to be fat. It's not even hard.

[Mendacious]

Few random legal thoughts about this deplorable event.

1) I'm not wild about this as a "wrongful death" case. I'm not sure how you get past forseeability.

2) Negligent infliction of emotional distress (to the parents) This is tough because I think Georgia follows the "impact" rule that requires some sort of physical contact ot the parents for them to get this type of damages.

3) Intentional infliction of emotional distress (to the parents) This is kind-of tough because it is not at all clear that any conduct was directed at the parents at all.

4) Negligent Infliction of emotional distress (towards Megan) I think you can prove what is necessary here, but damages are really dicey. I am not sure her damages survive her and go to the parents. (But this has the benefit of being an insurable risk-- so an insurance company might cave on this)

5) Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (Toward's Megan)-- same as above, but no insurance will pay this.

[O Fen�meno]

i can say with firm sincereity that if happened to my child they other families parents would not last a week

[CORed]

As sad and disturbing as this story is, and as vile as the behavior of the family that trainwrecked the girl is, I don't quite see where there is a crime, or any law that you could pass to make it a crime that wouldn't trample on free speech. Do we really want anybody that posts a flame on a web site to be subject to prosecution?

OTOH, there is probably cause for civil action: Libel, invasion of privacy, maybe wrongful death, but again, I'm more than a little uncomfortable with holding somebody responsible for another's suicide. It is tragic that the girl chose to take her own life, and the behavior of her friend's parents was despicable, but I think it's a pretty dangerous concept that anybody, even somebody who behaved badly, be blamed for another person's suicide. While I can understand the parents' wish to see something that resembles justice here, I'm not quite sure what that would be.

[TonyDanza]

I think there might be a civil suit under intentional infliction of emotional distress. I don't know if they would be able to establish the causal link of her death to the harassment, but it is at least a possibility.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

Also, if the cops wanted to pursue some type of criminal action for harassment, I would be surprised if there was not some statute allowing for that.

The focus seems to be on whether the adults actions caused her death. I think that is the most tenuous part of any case, but I think everyone can acknowledge that their actions caused a certain level of emotional distress and pain for this girl. The family could still recover for the pain caused to their daughter even if a jury does not find that the actions of the adults were the cause in fact or legal cause of her death.

[ZeeJustin]

The family responsible for Megan's death actually pressed charges over $1,000 in property damage?! WTF?! I hope they get what's coming to them just for that alone.