Opinion ID: 2638169
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public-Disclosure-of-Private-Facts Tort

Text: As to the public-disclosure-of-private-facts tort, the Court of Appeal indicated that the complaint identified three allegedly improper disclosures: (1) the Skeptical Inquirer article, (2) the Tavris article, and (3) statements that Loftus made in other contexts. Noting that past cases had established that lack of newsworthiness is an element of the `private facts' tort, making newsworthiness a complete bar to common law liability for this tort ( Shulman, supra, 18 Cal.4th 200, 215, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 843, 955 P.2d 4(59), the Court of Appeal initially determined that neither the complaint nor the material submitted in conjunction with the motion to strike identified any private fact that was revealed in the Skeptical Inquirer or Tavris articles which is not newsworthy. The court found in this regard that [t]o the extent these articles disclosed private information about [plaintiffs] past that was not already disclosed in the Child Maltreatment article, these facts related to the validity of Corwin's conclusions that [plaintiff] was abused by her mother, repressed the memory of sexual abuse and then recovered that memory 11 years later, and that the role of the Jane Doe case study in the repressed memory debate made the validity of that case study a matter of legitimate public interest. [9] Accordingly, the Court of Appeal held that plaintiff had not demonstrated a probability of prevailing on the private-facts tort with regard to any of the disclosures made in either the Skeptical Inquirer or Tavris articles. At the same time, however, the Court of Appeal concluded that plaintiff had demonstrated a probability of prevailing on a private-facts tort theory with regard to statements that Loftus had made in other contexts. The Court of Appeal noted in this regard that there is evidence in the record that Loftus made the following statement at an October 2002 professional conference: `Jane Doe engaged in destructive behavior that I cannot reveal on advice of my attorney. Jane is in the Navy representing our country,' and that [t]here is also evidence that Loftus revealed the first and last initial of [plaintiffs] real name during a deposition in an unrelated court action. The Court of Appeal concluded that [t]hese comments publicly disclose private information about Taus which is not newsworthy. They do not relate in any way to the validity of the Jane Doe study, the repressed memory debate or to any other matter of legitimate public interest. They are clues to the true identity of Jane Doe and, under the circumstances, a reasonable jury could find that disclosing this information was both offensive and objectionable. Accordingly, although the Court of Appeal concluded that the private-facts tort could not proceed with regard to any disclosures in the Skeptical Inquirer or Tavris articles themselves, the appellate court held that plaintiff had demonstrated a probability of prevailing on a private-facts tort theory against Loftus on the basis of statements relating to plaintiff that Loftus allegedly made at a professional conference and during a deposition in an unrelated court action.