Opinion ID: 2607582
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Development of the Right of Privacy

Text: In 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis published an article advocating the recognition of a right to privacy as an independent legal concept. Warren & Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 HARV. L.REV. 193 (1890). Explaining how courts traditionally recognized claims involving injury to a person's private thoughts or feelings, they also described how courts used contract and property law to protect thoughts, ideas, or expressions from wrongful appropriation. Id. Warren and Brandeis contended these were nothing more than instances and applications of a general right to privacy. Id. at 198. Hence, they supported recognition of the right to be let alone. Id. at 203. In 1905 the Georgia Supreme Court recognized the privacy right in a case involving wrongful appropriation of the plaintiff's name and likeness. Pavesich v. New England Life Insurance Co., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905). Controversy over recognition of a right to privacy continued, although the Restatement of Torts recognized an independent cause of action for interference with privacy in 1939. Restatement (First) of Torts § 867 (1939). A majority of jurisdictions eventually recognized the right in some form. PROSSER AND KEETON ON THE LAW OF TORTS § 117, at 850-51 (5th ed. 1984) (hereafter PROSSER & KEETON). In 1960, Dean Prosser concluded that four separate torts had developed under the right of privacy rubric: (1) intrusion on the plaintiff's seclusion or private affairs; (2) public disclosure of embarrassing private facts; (3) publicity placing the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye; and (4) appropriation of the plaintiff's name or likeness for the defendant's advantage. Prosser, Privacy, 48 CALIF.L.REV. 383 (1960). In 1977, the Restatement adopted Prosser's classification. See Restatement § 652A-I (1977). Although each tort is classified under invasion of privacy, they otherwise have almost nothing in common except that each represents an interference with the right of the plaintiff `to be let alone.' PROSSER & KEETON § 117, at 851.