Opinion ID: 1852099
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Insufficient funds

Text: It is undisputed that only two of the forged checks were returned to the presenting bank stamped insufficient funds. Those checks were the first two checks returned after the account was frozen on November 5, 1998, and were returned on that date. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this stamp provided false information regarding the Plotts' account to two presenting banks and two merchants, the giving publicity element of the false-light claim is not satisfied. In the context of a false-light claim, giving publicity is making a `matter ... public, by communicating it to the public at large, or to so many persons that the matter must be regarded as substantially certain to become one of public knowledge. ' Ex parte Birmingham News, Inc., 778 So.2d 814, 818 (Ala.2000) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D, cmt. a (1977) (emphasis added)). Publicity is a concept more difficult to prove than [mere] publication, which is an element of a defamation claim. Gary v. Crouch, 867 So.2d 310, 318 n. 6 (Ala.2003). The publicity element is not satisfied by the `communicat[ion of] a fact ... to a single person or even to a small group of persons.' Birmingham News, 778 So.2d at 818 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D, cmt. a (1977) (emphasis added in Birmingham News; some emphasis omitted)). We hold that the return by a payor bank of one check stamped insufficient funds to two presenting banks and two merchants does not giv[e] publicity to a matter concerning another within the meaning of the publicity element of a false-light claim. To be sure, the Plotts argue: [E]very time Regions Bank returned one of the forged checks stamped [with one of the four stamps discussed above], they were placing the plaintiffs in the false light of being bad check writers who were writing checks with insufficient funds or on closed accounts, neither of which was true. They were placed in the false light of committing criminal offenses of writing bad checks pursuant to Alabama's Bad Check Act. Plotts' brief, at 33. In their complaint, the Plotts aver that Regions failed to report to the entities who submitted checks on [their] previous account and which were returned... that the checks were not written by the [Plotts], and that Regions failed to take the necessary steps and procedures to correct the credit record. Regions, however, correctly points out that the Plotts have offered no evidence that the return of the checks was wrongful or that Regions did anything contrary to the provisions of Alabama's Uniform Commercial Code  Bank Deposits and Collections, Ala.Code § 7-4-101, et seq. (1975), Federal Reserve regulations, operating circulars, clearing house rules, [or] circulars, Regions' brief, at 28, or that it performed any operation that it was not legally entitled to perform. Indeed, the Plotts fail to cite us to a source for the duty it alleges Regions had to report to the entities who submitted checks on [their frozen] account that the checks had not been written by the Plotts. The account was frozen at the instigation of the Plotts. It is undisputed that the Plotts never intended to honor, or for Regions to pay, any of the forged checks. The Plotts knew that the checks would be returned to the presenting banks and merchants. They authorized Regions to return the checks, and, for all that appears in the record, never suggested to Regions how to stamp the checks, or what, in particular, it should do to correct the [Plotts'] credit record. The Plotts also criticize Regions for failing to give Mrs. Plott an affidavit of forgery, after she begged for one. However, they do not explain how an affidavit supplied by Regions would have produced a result different from the affidavit they procured from another source and subsequently sent to every holder of a forged check. In short, the Plotts have failed to produce substantial evidence in support of their false-light claim against Regions. The trial court erred, therefore, in refusing to enter a JML in favor of Regions on that claim.