Title: Cape Publications, Inc. v. Hitchner

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

549 So. 2d 1374 (1989)
CAPE PUBLICATIONS, INC., Vince Spezzano, and Jere Maupin, Petitioners,
v.
Phillip HITCHNER and Barbara Hitchner, His Wife, Respondents.
No. 71554.

Supreme Court of Florida.
October 5, 1989.
Rehearing Denied November 9, 1989.
Jack A. Kirschenbaum of Wolfe, Kirschenbaum & Peeples, P.A., Cocoa Beach, Florence Snyder Rivas of Edwards & Angell, Palm Beach, and John B. McCrory, Robert C. Bernius and Patricia A. Ayers of Nixon, Hargrave, Devans & Doyle, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.
William E. Weller of Rose & Weller, Cocoa Beach, for respondents.
George K. Rahdert and Alison M. Steele of Rahdert Acosta, P.A., St. Petersburg, Will Strickland of Ferrero, Middlebrooks, Strickland & Fischer, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, Gregg D. Thomas of Holland & Knight, Tampa, Richard Ovelmen, Miami, Joseph P. Averill, Miami, William G. Mateer and David L. Evans of Mateer, Harbert & Bates, Orlando, George Freeman and Deborah Linfield, New York City, and Bruce Sanford of Baker & Hostetler, Washington, D.C., amici curiae for The Times Publishing Co., The Miami Herald Pub. Co., Sentinel Communications Co., The Tribune Co., News and Sun Sentinel Co., *1375 Miami Daily News, Inc., News-Press Pub. Co., Pensacola News-Journal, Inc., Scripps Howard, Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company, Fernandina Beach News-Leader, Inc., Gainesville Sun Pub. Co., Lake City Reporter, Inc., Lakeland Ledger Pub. Corp., Ocala Star-Banner Corporation, Sebring News-Sun, Inc., The Leesburg Daily Commercial, Inc., The Palatka Daily News, Inc., The Sarasota Herald-Tribune Co., The Marco Island Eagle, and The Florida Star.
Richard J. Ovelmen, Miami, and Gerald B. Cope, Jr. and Laura Besvinick of Greer, Homer, Cope & Bonner, P.A., Miami, amici curiae for Representative Elaine Gordon, Roberta Fox, The Florida Press Association, and The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors.
Joel D. Eaton of Podhurst, Orseck, Parks, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow & Olin, P.A., Miami, amicus curiae for The Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers.
Janet Reno, State Atty., and Paul Mendelson, Asst. State Atty., Miami, amicus curiae.
SHAW, Justice.
We review Cape Publications, Inc. v. Hitchner, 514 So. 2d 1136 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987), which upheld the constitutional validity of section 827.07, Florida Statutes (1981). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. We quash in part the decision of the district court.
The issue presented by this case is whether a newspaper can be held liable under a private-facts tort theory for publishing lawfully obtained, confidential child abuse information in a story on a related child abuse trial. We conclude that under the facts here it cannot.
On December 8, 1980, respondents Hitchners were charged with aggravated child abuse by maliciously punishing a child, under section 827.03(3), Florida Statutes (1979). The trial judge directed a verdict in favor of the Hitchners at the close of the state's evidence. The following week, petitioner Maupin, a reporter employed by petitioner Cape Publications, Inc. (Cape), covered the trial for a news story. He interviewed the prosecutor, and after an unsuccessful attempt to interview the trial judge, he revisited the prosecutor's office in an effort to obtain the Hitchners' home phone number. A secretary there, acting under the prosecutor's direction, handed him the entire case file, which included a Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) predispositional report, a sheriff's case report, and a typed interview with the child by the prosecutor. The secretary made no comment concerning the file, nor were any of the file contents labeled confidential.
Maupin reviewed the file for approximately an hour and subsequently wrote an article published on February 4, 1980, in the Today newspaper, which read in part:
Ten days later, Today printed a retraction, which included the following statement:
The Hitchners filed a four-count complaint against Maupin and Cape, alleging two counts of invasion of privacy (under theories of "private facts" and "false light") and two counts of libel. They asserted that the following facts were not brought out at trial and were obtained from confidential reports contained within the prosecutor's file:
(Emphasis omitted.) In Count I, entitled Invasion of Privacy  Public Disclosure of Private Facts, the Hitchners asserted that disclosure of these facts violated section 827.07, Florida Statutes, which provides in part:
§ 827.07, Fla. Stat. (1981).
After the parties stipulated that the facts in issue came from the child abuse reports, the trial court issued partial summary judgment on liability under Count I in favor of the Hitchners, finding that the statute was valid, that it created a private cause of action, and that the publication of records covered under the statute constituted negligence as a matter of law. The district court affirmed, ruling that the Hitchners properly alleged a cause of action under the theory of public disclosure of private facts, that the statute established the privacy of the facts, and that summary judgment was correctly issued since the stipulated facts precluded any genuine issue of material fact. The court expressly upheld the statute's constitutionality.
The Restatement (Second) of Torts defines the tort of invasion of privacy by public disclosure of private facts (private-facts tort) as follows:
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D (1977). The elements can be summarized as 1) the publication, 2) of private facts, 3) that are offensive, and 4) are not of public concern. The district court characterized the Hitchners' claim as a common law private-facts action wherein two of its elements (private facts, lack of public concern) were established as a matter of law by the statute. First, it stated that:
Cape, 514 So. 2d  at 1138. And then, in response to Cape's assertion that the published matters were of public concern, it pointed out that:
Id.
We disagree with the court's analysis and we believe that the facts here are clearly a matter of legitimate public concern. The developing law surrounding the private-facts tort recognizes that the requirement of lack of public concern is a formidable obstacle. In fact, the "news-worthiness" defense has been recognized by commentators as being so broad as to nearly swallow the tort. See, e.g., Zimmerman, Requiem for a Heavyweight: A Farewell to Warren and Brandeis's Privacy Tort, 68 Cornell L.Rev. 291 (1983). Florida courts have long recognized the restriction placed upon the general right to privacy by the public's right to know:
Cason v. Baskin, 155 Fla. 198, 215-16, 20 So. 2d 243, 251 (1944) (quoting 41 Am.Jur. 935). And further:
Harms v. Miami Daily News, Inc., 127 So. 2d 715, 717 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971).
The public's right to know assumes special importance where judicial proceedings are concerned. In Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 95 S. Ct. 1029, 43 L. Ed. 2d 328 (1975), the Court held that publication of a rape victim's name, obtained from indictments made available in open court, did not give rise to liability for invasion of privacy under private-facts theory. In denying civil liability based upon a Georgia statute that made disclosure of rape victims' names illegal, the Court pointed out that such liability runs counter to society's interest in promoting accurate media coverage of government, and particularly judicial, functions. This point is equally applicable here.
Cape's actions in publishing the complained of information can be summarized thusly: Following a child abuse trial, Cape lawfully obtained from government records additional and confidential child abuse information related to the case. It printed the information in an article on that particular trial. Its purpose in so doing was to scrutinize the judicial function. It was printing what it believed to be facts brought out at trial in an effort to hold up to the public what it considered to be a questionable judicial determination. It was not attempting to sensationalize a private nongovernment matter.
Cox speaks directly to this role of the media in such matters:
Id. at 491-92, 95 S. Ct.  at 1044 (citation omitted; emphasis added). The importance of this role was affirmed in Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 839, 98 S. Ct. 1535, 1541, 56 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1978) (quoting Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 350, 86 S. Ct. 1507, 1515, 16 L. Ed. 2d 600 (1966)):
A similar issue was addressed by the Court in Florida Star v. B.J.F., ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 2603, 105 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989). There, a newspaper inadvertently published a rape victim's name in violation *1379 of section 794.03, Florida Statutes (1987), which prohibits such publication. The Court, in ruling that a judicially implied private cause of action was improperly applied against the newspaper, pointed out that criminal matters such as those involved in the instant case generally constitute matters of legitimate public concern:
Florida Star, 109 S. Ct.  at 2611.
We underscore the fact that the information published by Cape was lawfully obtained; it was freely given by government officials and thus was legitimately within the public domain. Florida Star addressed this point:
Id. at 2611-12 (citation omitted).
Based on the foregoing, we hold narrowly that the information disclosed by Cape was of legitimate public concern. We quash that portion of the district court decision that found the petitioners liable for private-facts tort. Because this matter is decided narrowly on the above grounds, we do not reach the broad issue concerning the overall constitutionality of section 827.07. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
OVERTON, BARKETT and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
McDONALD, J., concurs with an opinion.
GRIMES, J., concurs in result only with an opinion, in which EHRLICH, C.J., concurs.
McDONALD, Justice, concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion. The public has a legitimate concern and interest in child abuse. The Hitchners had been charged with and tried for child abuse and, therefore, had lost any claim of privacy for these acts. See Annotation, Waiver or Loss of Right of Privacy, 57 A.L.R.3d 16, § 15 (1974). Insofar as an invasion of privacy action is concerned, it matters not where the facts came from. See Pearson v. Dodd, 410 F.2d 701 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 947, 89 S. Ct. 2021, 23 L. Ed. 2d 465 (1969).
If the defendant either knowingly or negligently published false information, the Hitchners may have a claim in libel, Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Ane, 423 So. 2d 376 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982), approved, 458 So. 2d 239 (Fla. 1984), or maybe defamation, but not invasion of privacy.
GRIMES, Justice, concurring in result only.
Despite the fact that the information contained in the prosecutor's file would ordinarily *1380 be of public interest, I do believe that the statute had the effect of making the information private and not of legitimate public concern for purposes of the claim for invasion of privacy. However, because the reporter did not obtain the information illegally, I am convinced that the first amendment analysis of Florida Star v. B.J.F., ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 2603, 105 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989), mandates reversal.
EHRLICH, C.J., concurs.