YouTube creator Karl Jobst has been ordered to pay up to AU$390,447 (or roughly $244,858 US dollars) to notable arcade gamer Billy Mitchell, following defamatory comments made against Mitchell in 2021.
This comes just months after settling a separate defamation lawsuit against game database Twin Galaxies, which previously stripped its database of Mitchell's old scores and former records in the likes of Donkey Kong and Pac Man as it investigated allegations that his best Donkey Kong score wasn't achieved on original, unmodified hardware. However, in this defamation lawsuit against Jobst, "Mr Mitchell does not complain that Mr Jobst called him a cheat," but rather that a video posted by Jobst allegedly implied that Mitchell "was a major contributing factor" in the "decision to commit suicide" by content creator Benjamin "Apollo Legend" Smith, according to judge Ken Barlow.
As reported by PC Gamer, in the video in question, Jobst alleged that after Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Smith (who previously made multiple videos about Mitchell, some of which accused him of cheating), Smith had to pay a significant sum of money to Mitchell. This, Jobst alleged, added to existing negative circumstances for Smith, who later took his own life.
In the defamation case against Jobst, Mitchell alleged that "the offending words carried five defamatory imputations": that Smith was required to pay a "large amount of money to settle Mr Mitchell’s defamation claim against him, which caused Apollo Legend to go into considerable debt and to take on extra work to survive," that this was "a major contributing factor in Apollo Legend's decision to take his own life," that "Mitchell had hounded Apollo Legend to death," that Mitchell was "the main cause, or alternatively a cause" and that his "conduct was a contributing factor" in Smith's decision to take his life.
In the latest court ruling, the judge clarifies that the settlement of this previous lawsuit against Smith resulted in an agreement that "did not require Apollo Legend to pay any money to Mr Mitchell unless he breached his non-publication obligations," those being to remove six of his videos, assign the copyright to Mitchell, and not to post anything about Mitchell, or about his scores, family, any anyone associated with him without his consent.
Jobst has been ordered to pay AU$300,000 in damages (and AU$34,668.50 in interest), as well as AU$50,000 in aggravated damages (and AU$5,778.08 in interest). It's worth noting that the added interest is "subject to either party seeking a different order as to interest, upon delivery of this judgment or by filing and serving a written submission within 14 days."
On Twitter, Mitchell has shared his thanks to "everyone who supported me," while Jobst writes: "I lost. The judge found Billy to be a credible witness and believed his entire testimony. From that point on unfortunately there was really nothing that could have saved me. I will now obviously consider my options."
