If this headline had read the four Duggar sisters were taking legal action against their brother and their parents, you wouldn’t have been too surprised. After all, it was their brother that committed the molestation and their parents who made a poor attempt to cover it up. The Duggar lawsuit, however, has taken everyone by surprise because of the unintended target.
Who are they suing?
Jill, Jessa, Jinger and Joy Duggar have decided to take legal action against the Arkansas law enforcement as well as In Touch Weekly. The reason? The fact that the magazine released police documents using the Freedom of Information Act back in 2015.
These police documents in question revealed that Josh Duggar had a thing for molesting underage girls when he was a teenager. And this included his sisters.
What really made people sick to their stomach about this story was the fact that the Duggars’ parents knew about the brother’s molestation scandal and attempted to cover it up instead of getting help for the girls.
The sister’s thought their statements were private
Jill, Jessa, Jinger and Joy Duggar claimed to have been under the impression the statements they made in 2006 – when they were minors – would not become public. The Duggar siblings are arguing – under the Arkansas law – information collected involving minors cannot be disclosed using the Freedom of Information Act.
Because the four Duggar siblings were minors, they believe the police documents should never have surfaced.
The four Duggar sisters are seeking out compensation for punitive damages – though the amount is unspecified. They are seeking this compensation from the Arkansas city of Springdale, Springdale Police Department, In Touch Weekly, and Arkansas’ Washington County.
The four Duggar siblings are claiming that releasing the documents “revictimized” them by identifying them as some of their brother’s victims in the scandal.
It is worth noting that In Touch Weekly never actually identified Josh’s underage victim. It was actually Jessa and Jill – two of the Duggar siblings – who identified themselves as two of his five victims during an interview.
While Jinger and Joy were confirmed to also be victims of Josh as well as the fifth victim, who is not known. The sisters, however, believe In Touch Weekly not removing their parents’ names from the report gave them away as the victims without actually using their names. The sisters claim to have become the victims of both harassment and cruel comments because of the report.
The real question is simple – are Jill, Jessa, Jinger and Joy Duggar really filing a lawsuit against the right people? Is suing everyone really the solution to this problem? Shouldn’t the parents or the brother be the real target of this legal action?
