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Supreme Court of Athens Civil No. 2019-1 IN THE Supreme Court of Athens ELECTRA ATREUS, Petitioner, v. ORESTES ATREUS, Respondent. On Writ of Certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the Circuit of Athens BRIEF FOR RESPONDENT ELIZABETH B. WYDRA MADISON A. NEEDHAM CONSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY CENTER 1200 18th Street NW, Suite 501 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 296-6889 Counsel for Respondent TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ................................. ii QUESTIONS PRESENTED ................................. 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................. 2 STATEMENT ........................................................ 4 ARGUMENT ......................................................... 6 I. Petitioner Was the Proximate Cause of Respondent’s Emotional Distress ......... 6 II. Respondent’s Pre-Existing Condition Does Not Diminish Petitioner’s Liability ..................................................... 10 III. The Lower Courts’ Assessment of Damages was Appropriate ..................... 11 CONCLUSION ..................................................... 16 (i) ii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page(s) The Will of Athena Skullborn of the Brazen House, the First of Her Name, the Rightful Patron and Protector of Athens, the Goddess of Wisdom, War- fare, and Handicraft, She of Bright- Eyes, the Breaker of Tapestries, and Mother of Chariots ............................... passim Themis and Her Scales of Justice ........... passim 1 QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Is Electra Atreus liable to the emotional and reputational harms incurred by Orestes Atreus because she intentionally exploited his mental illness to cause him to engage in a distressing act? 2. If Electra Atreus is liable, is 100,000-talents an appropriate award for compensatory and puni- tive damages? 3. Would it be wise of this Court to deny the com- pensation of King Orestes of Mycenae, who has demonstrated a tendency toward delusion- driven vengeance and possesses the favor of Athena, Goddess of War and Turning Those Who Spite Her into Snakes and Spiders? 2 INTRODUCTION At the start of the Trojan War, King Agamemnon Atreus of Mycenae came to know the vile curse of his house. The blood spilt by his forefather, that Tantalus of Anatolia who stewed his own son, trickled down the family tree and set Agamemnon upon a wretched duty. In order to turn the wind and set his troops across the Aegean, Agamemnon was forced to sacri- fice his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. This task shat- tered Agamemnon’s soul, but for it he was rewarded. After ten long years, the Gods blessed him with tri- umph in Troy. However, Agamemnon was never permitted to en- joy his winnings—his wife, Queen Clytemnestra Atreus, was struck by envy like Aphrodite’s upon handsome Helen. Embittered by the presence of Cas- sandra, Agamemnon’s new “friend,” Clytemnestra furthered the bloody history of Mycenae’s royal house. Murdering both Agamemnon and Cassandra, the Queen set the amphitheater for the matter cur- rently before the Court. But where she may have set the scene, it was her daughter, Electra Atreus, who ultimately directed the act. A decade after the close of the war, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s son, Orestes Atreus, returned to Mycenae. Having been sent away after his father’s murder, Orestes arrived distraught. Overhearing his father’s dying screams had left Orestes in the grips of mental illness. He believed that Apollo, God of the Sun and Negligently Killing Your Boyfriend with a Discus,1 spoke in his mind. Upon learning this, his 1 See Apollo v. Estate of Hyacinth, 1 O. 123 (Court of Olympus 1490 BCE) (finding that “the use of godly strength” while play- ing sports with a mortal amounts to “negligence per se”). 3 sister, Electra, defied all moral principles. Reacting with excitement rather than concern, Electra es- chewed her brother’s well-being and set about a vile plot. Bitter over having been made a servant in her own house, Electra despised her mother. She sought Cly- temnestra’s death—and a means of having someone else behind the knife. Like a viper to the breast of Clytemnestra, Electra snapped at the opportunity her brother’s illness presented. She used him, exploiting his enfeebled state and coercing him into matricide. In her own words, Electra made clear that while Orestes held the knife that ended Clytemnestra’s life, it was “only because [she] handed it to him.” Ellen McLaughlin, The Oresteia at 63 (1258 BCE) [herein- after The Oresteia]. Immediately following Clytemnestra’s death, Ores- tes mental state further deteriorated. Though Athe- na, who has remarked that her “two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,”2 pardoned him of all wrong-doing, Orestes has been continuously plagued by sleepwalking, bad dreams, hallucinations, and a vehement fear of birds. His ailment has grown so severe that his delusional belief that birds are violent Furies, see The Oresteia at 61, has even prevented him from enjoying his fa- vorite restaurant, Thessaly Fried Chicken. Worse yet, The Helios, Daily Zodiac, and Mycenae Enquirer have run rampant with publications be- smirching Orestes’s good name, deeming him “The 2 Goddess Athena (@realGoddessAthena), Twitter (Jan. 6, 1302 BCE; 8:27 AM), https://twitter.com/realGoddessAthena/status/949618475877765 120. 4 Notorious KOA (King Orestes Atreus).” See Aeschy- lus, Rumors Fly Around Mycenae’s New King, Myc. Times, June 15, 1260 BCE, at A1. The press and gos- sip surrounding Orestes’s matricide—which include graphic comparisons to the failures of Oedipus—have furthered the young king’s distress and undermined his attempts at ruling Mycenae. Petitioner Electra alleges that she loves her brother and meant him no harm. She asks that this Court overlook her gruesome exploitation of his forsaken state and leave him without remedy for the anguish she wrought in inducing his matricide. But, if Electra loves Orestes, then she loves him as the sorceress Medea loved her brother, Absyrtus. Just as the witch cut her kin into pieces for the sake of thievery, Elec- tra has thrown her brother to madness in pursuit of wicked revenge. This Court should deny her request. STATEMENT From the very outset, Petitioner intended to cause her brother to kill their mother, irrespective of the distress it might cause him. She saw him as little more than a means to exert her will, stating that the murder would be done first, “through [her],” and then “through my brother,” -- a clear expression of her de- sire to employ him as a puppet. She cared little for his well-being, considering the fact that he might still be alive merely “useful” to her purposes. And, once it was apparent he was mentally feeble and easy to manipulate, she exploited his condition, interrupting his protests and insisting his visions meant he must kill their mother. Most wickedly, when Respondent expressed a de- sire to speak to their late father, Petitioner claimed to 5 have done so herself. She led her brother through a faulty ritual to contact Agamemnon, pretending that her own desires were in fact those of the ghosts and Gods, knowing that Orestes was a man with espoused delusions regarding the non-mortal. During this ritu- al, Petitioner was the first to call harm to Clytemnes- tra, setting her ill brother down the vile path she de- sired. She thrust the murder weapon in his hand both literally and figuratively, passing him the knife only once she’d shaped his fragile psyche to believe mur- dering their mother was his fated duty. That he, in his sickness, followed through can only be attributed to the Petitioner’s conniving machinations. Accordingly, Respondent sued, seeking compen- satory and punitive damages against Petitioner on the basis that “her actions were the proximate cause of both his mental state and the damage to his repu- tation.” Scenario at 1. The jury, recognizing the vil- lainy of Petitioner’s conduct, found in favor of Re- spondent. They awarded him 100,000 Attic talents, finding that Petitioner had “intentionally and tortu- ously taken advantage of Orestes’s mental state to cause him to kill his mother.” Scenario at 2. Petitioner appealed to the Circuit Court of Ath- ens, arguing that the jury’s verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, the law, and that its award was excessive. In his opinion, Chief Archon Garland asserted that “[t]o surrender to Petitioner’s demands would be to promote outrageous injustice” and that he “knew a thing or two about outrageous injustices.” Atreus v. Atreus, 4 F.3d 234, 255 (Ath. Cir. 1259 BCE). Consequently, Archon Garland af- firmed the lower court’s decision and award. This Court subsequently granted Petitioner’s timely filed petition for writ of certiorari. 6 ARGUMENT I. Petitioner was the proximate cause of Respondent’s emotional distress. It matters not whether Electra intended for her ac- tions to bring Orestes dismay, only that she intended to cause him to kill their mother. It is a well-founded principle of Athenian law that a prima-facie case of infliction of emotional distress lies where a defend- ant, demonstrating a reckless disregard for the prob- ability of causing emotional distress, engages in out- rageous conduct that is the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s emotional distress. See eg., Nally v. Grace Community Temple, 47 Cal.3d 278 (1398 BCE); Re- statement (Second) of Torts § 46 (1396 BCE). This, then, is a prima-face case of infliction of emotional distress, the peculiar feature of matricide mere Coli- seum dressing. The matters of whether Petitioner’s conduct was “outrageous” and “recklessly performed” need not de- tain us long. Where a defendant “knows the plaintiff is susceptible to injuries through mental distress” or acts unreasonably “with the recognition that the acts are likely to result in illness through mental dis- tress,” their actions are clearly outrageous. Clark v. United States aka Athens, 120 F.3d 268 (Ath. Cir. 1412 BCE). Respondent, by her own admission, rec- ognizes that her brother was vulnerable— “disturbed,” to use her parlance—upon his return to Mycenae.
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