Opinion ID: 612893
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Invasion-of-Privacy Claim

Text: We next consider Charvat's challenge of the district court's determination that his state-law claim of invasion of privacy fails as a matter of law. The district court concluded that the thirty-one prerecorded telemarketing calls, which were made during mid-day over a period of three months, may have been annoying but do not constitute a plausible claim for an intrusion that would `outrage or cause mental suffering, shame or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities' or that would be `highly offensive to a reasonable person.' R.53 (Dist. Ct. Op. at 13) (quoting Housh v. Peth, 165 Ohio St. 35, 133 N.E.2d 340 syllabus para. 2 (1956); Sustin v. Fee, 69 Ohio St.2d 143, 431 N.E.2d 992, 994 (1982)). We review de novo the district court's decision that the claim failed as a matter of law. Saglioccolo, 112 F.3d at 228. Ohio recognizes the tort of invasion of the right to privacy for the wrongful intrusion into one's private activities in such a manner as to outrage or cause mental suffering, shame or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities. Housh, 133 N.E.2d syllabus para. 2. The Ohio Supreme Court has looked to the Restatement (2d) of Torts to define the scope of liability for an intrusion-upon-seclusion claim: One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. Sustin, 431 N.E.2d at 993-94 (citing Restatement (2d) of Torts § 652B (1977)). When considering whether a defendant's telephone calls to the plaintiff are offensive or outrageous enough to support an actionable claim of invasion of privacy, Ohio courts have looked to a number of different factors, including the number of calls, the content of the calls, the time of day that the calls were made, and whether the calls were accompanied by other contacts with the plaintiff. In Housh, the Ohio Supreme Court concluded that a defendant-creditor's conduct was actionable as an invasion of the plaintiff-debtor's privacy when the defendant initiate[d] a campaign to harass and torment the debtor, telephone[d] the debtor six or eight times every day at her home and place of employment  some of the calls as late as 11:45 p.m.  over a period of three weeks, telephone[d] the debtor's superiors and inform[ed] them of the debt, and call[ed] the debtor at her place of employment three times within a period of 15 minutes with a resultant threat of loss of employment. 133 N.E.2d syllabus para. 4; accord id. at 344. In another example, the Ohio Court of Appeals concluded that a defendant-creditor's collection tactics exceeded the bounds of reasonableness when the defendant (1) made forty and fifty phone calls to [the plaintiff-debtor], asking if he was `related to Rodney King,' and call[ing] him a `punk ass mother fucker' and `faggot'; (2) called [the plaintiff-debtor's] sister and friend at least two times and informed them that a warrant had been issued for [his] arrest because of the bad checks; (3) called [the plaintiff-debtor's] landlord; and (4) sent his employer letters and faxes, concerning the debt. King v. Cashland, Inc., Nos. 18208, 99-1640, 2000 WL 1232768, at -3 (Ohio Ct.App. Sept. 1, 2000) (unpublished decision). However, because [a] creditor has a right to take reasonable action to pursue his debtor and persuade payment, Housh, 133 N.E.2d syllabus para. 3, we believe that it is important to distinguish instances in which a creditor is calling a debtor from instances in which a telemarketer is placing unsolicited calls to residential telephone subscribers. Indeed, Congress enacted the TCPA because consumers complained that unsolicited telemarketing calls, and in particular automated calls and messages, are a nuisance and an invasion of privacy. S.Rep. No. 102-178, at 2, 4-5, reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1968, 1969, 1972. Thus, with respect to content, the Ohio Court of Appeals has concluded that, even when the content of the call or transmitted material is not objectionable, the unsolicited communication itself is offensive and violative of the individual's right of privacy. Motorists Mut. Ins. Co. v. Dandy-Jim, Inc., 182 Ohio App.3d 311, 912 N.E.2d 659, 666 (2009). With respect to the number of calls, the Ohio Court of Appeals' decision in Irvine v. Akron Beacon Journal, 147 Ohio App.3d 428, 770 N.E.2d 1105 (2002), indicates that alleging hundreds of phone calls is sufficient for an actionable claim, whereas alleging only two or three phone calls is not. Id. at 1112, 1114 (citing Restatement (2d) of Torts § 652B cmt. d, which states that there is no liability for knocking on the plaintiff's door, or calling him to the telephone on one occasion or even two or three, to demand payment of a debt); accord Misseldine v. Corporate Investigative Servs., Inc., No. 81771, 2003 WL 21234928, at  (Ohio Ct.App. May 29, 2003) (unpublished decision) (A few phone calls do not constitute such wrongful intrusion.). The court of appeals in Irvine concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in giving the following jury instruction, which quotes directly from the commentary in the Restatement (2d) of Torts: It is only when telephone calls are repeated with such persistence and frequency as to amount to a course of hounding the Plaintiffs that becomes a substantial burden to his existence that the Plaintiffs' privacy is invaded. 770 N.E.2d at 1112 (alteration omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Restatement (2d) of Torts § 652B cmt. d. Receiving thirty-one calls over the course of three months is certainly less intrusive than receiving hundreds, but thirty-one calls would be significantly more offensive than receiving three or fewer calls. The threshold of when the number of calls becomes so persistent and frequent as to constitute hounding is not clearly delineated; we cannot say as a matter of law that thirty-one calls over three months does not constitute a substantial burden. The court of appeals in Irvine also stated that telephone calls need not be made at a certain time of the day to constitute an invasion of privacy. 770 N.E.2d at 1113. Therefore, the fact that the calls to Charvat were not made late at night or early in the morning does not necessarily preclude his claim. Finally, we believe that the district court failed to consider an important fact: thirty of the thirty-one telephone calls were made after Charvat expressly requested to be placed on Defendants' do-not-call list. R.20 (2d Am. Compl. ¶ 86). Persisting in calling after this do-not-call request is more offensive to and likely to outrage a reasonable person. Considering all of the factual circumstances, we conclude that the calls could outrage or be highly offensive to a reasonable person. Therefore, we cannot conclude that Charvat's invasion-of-privacy claim fails as a matter of law. The damages that Charvat has pleaded in good faith for the invasion-of-privacy claim thus may be included in the determination of the amount in controversy for purposes of determining jurisdiction. See R.20 (2d Am. Compl. at 40). [16]