Opinion ID: 152982
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tortious Intent

Text: The statute requires that an oral communication be intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act. 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d). The district court did not address this issue and the original complaint as filed does not allege a tortious intent behind David Weintraub's recording. Caro requested leave before the district court to amend his complaint. The district court denied Caro's request, a decision that both sides agree was in error under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in effect at the time. [6] Caro now argues that if he were permitted to amend the complaint, he would allege that Weintraub recorded his statements with tortious intent, while Weintraub argues that the effort would be futile. Caro's assertion that he would plead a tortious intent is simply a recitation of the missing element in his claiman exercise insufficient to rescue the complaint from its deficiencies. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949-50, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). However, we remain obligated to construe pro se complaints liberally. See Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 71-72 (2d Cir.2009). Because Caro, a pro se plaintiff, should have been afforded leave to amend his complaint, and because he contends that he will address the deficiency, there is a strong argument that we should remand the case to allow him a chance to fix the fault. Fulton v. Goord, 591 F.3d 37, 45 (2d Cir.2009). But Weintraub's contention is well-takenwe need not remand if the re-pleading effort would be futile. Id. Determining the futility of an amended pleading turns on whether Title III requires that the claimant assert that the recording occurred with a separate and independent tortious intent, or whether the necessary tortious intent can be inferred from the act of recording itself. In other words, must a plaintiff plead that the defendant had intent to use the illicit recording to commit a tort beyond the act of recording illicitly or may the defendant merely have the intent to record and that alone is sufficient? Several of our sister circuits have tackled the issue, each reaching the conclusion that, under Title III, the defendant must have the intent to use the illicit recording to commit a tort or crime beyond the act of recording itself. In Desnick v. American Broadcasting Cos., 44 F.3d 1345, 1347-48 (7th Cir.1995), a producer of the ABC show PrimeTime Live arranged for individuals posing as patients to enter the Desnick Eye Center and to film their encounters using concealed cameras. PrimeTime Live eventually aired a segment on its undercover investigation, asserting misconduct by Center employees. Id. at 1348. Center employees brought suit, charging in part that ABC had used an illegal wiretap under Title III. Id. at 1353. The Seventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of the employees' Wiretap Act claims, concluding that ABC did not send the patients into the Center in order to commit a crime, tort, or other injurious act. Id. Even if the PrimeTime Live episode that followed the taping was defamatory, there was no evidence that ABC sent the test patients into the Center for the purpose of defaming the Center employees. Id. In Sussman v. American Broadcasting Cos., 186 F.3d 1200, 1201 (9th Cir.1999), ABC conducted an undercover investigation of the Psychic Marketing Group using various surveillance devices; two employees of the Group brought suit. The employees did not allege that the tape was made for the purpose of committing some other subsequent crime or tort, but instead argue[d] that the taping itself was tortious. Id. at 1202. The Ninth Circuit found that this allegation was insufficient to meet the requirements of the statute. Where the taping is legal, but is done for the purpose of facilitating some further impropriety, such as blackmail, § 2511 [of Title XVIII] applies. Where the purpose is not illegal or tortious, but the means are, the victims must seek redress elsewhere. Id. at 1202-03 (emphasis added); accord Lucas v. Fox News Network, LLC, 248 F.3d 1180, 2001 WL 100181, at  (11th Cir. Jan.16, 2001) (per curiam); Vazquez-Santos v. El Mundo Broad. Corp., 219 F.Supp.2d 221, 229-30 (D.P.R. 2002). The legislative history of the Wiretap Act is also instructive. The Wiretap Act as initially proposed did not prohibit interception where one of the parties to the communication consented, regardless of the parties' intent. See S.Rep. No. 90-1097, 1968 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2112, at 2182 (1968). Senator Philip A. Hart objected to the broad language, observing that it permitted surreptitious monitoring of a conversation by a party to the conversation, even though the monitoring may be for insidious purposes such as blackmail, stealing business secrets, or other criminal or tortious acts in violation of Federal or State laws. Id. at 2236. Senator Hart and Senator John L. McClellan proposed an amendment to the bill that would limit the one-party consent rule to private persons who act in a defensive fashion. 114 Cong. Rec. 14694 (1968). This meant that interceptions by a party to the conversation would be forbidden if they were made with an unlawful motive, such as blackmailing the other party, threatening him, or publicly embarrassing him. Id. However, a party to a criminal conversation that recorded the conversation in order to bring evidence to the police or recording out of a legitimate desire to protect himself and his own conversations from later distortions or other unlawful or injurious uses by the other party would be protected under the statute. Id. The amendment passed. Id. at 14695. As the Eighth Circuit so aptly observed, it is apparent from the context in which [Title XVIII] was enacted that the sort of conduct contemplated was an interception by a party to a conversation with an intent to use that interception against the non-consenting party in some harmful way and in a manner in which the offending party had no right to proceed. Meredith v. Gavin, 446 F.2d 794, 799 (8th Cir.1971). There is a temporal thread that runs through the fabric of the statute and the case law. At the time of the recording the offender must intend to use the recording to commit a criminal or tortious act. Merely intending to record the plaintiff is not enough. If, at the moment he hits record, the offender does not intend to use the recording for criminal or tortious purposes, there is no violation. But if, at the time of the recording, the offender plans to use the recording to harm the other party to the conversation, a civil cause of action exists under the Wiretap Act. Intent may not be inferred simply by demonstrating that the intentional act of recording itself constituted a tort. A simultaneous tort arising from the act of recording itself is insufficient. Congress chose the word purpose for a reason. Therefore, the offender must have as her objective a tortious or criminal result. Had Congress intended for the act of recording itself to provide the tortious intent necessary, it could have chosen to define the exception in terms of interception of oral communications resulting in a tortious or criminal act. But Congress limited the cause of action to instances where one party to the conversation deliberately seeks to harm the other participant through the information intercepted. We join the courts that have considered this question, and hold that a cause of action under § 2511(2)(d) requires that the interceptor intend to commit a crime or tort independent of the act of recording itself. Thus, to survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must plead sufficient facts to support an inference that the offender intercepted the communication for the purpose of a tortious or criminal act that is independent of the intentional act of recording. The only tort Caro asserts in his complaint that could plausibly provide the intent necessary to bring the recording under the Wiretap Act is invasion of privacy, a tort recognized under Connecticut common law. See Goodrich v. Waterbury Republican-Am., Inc., 188 Conn. 107, 127-28, 448 A.2d 1317 (1982). Other circuits appear to have implicitly recognized invasion of privacy as a tort that could provide the necessary intent to bring a recording within the purview of the Wiretap Act. See, e.g., Deteresa v. Am. Broad. Cos., 121 F.3d 460, 467 n. 4 (9th Cir.1997); Phillips v. Bell, No. 08-1420, 2010 WL 517629, at  (10th Cir. Feb.12, 2010). But, under Connecticut law, invasion of privacy includes four distinct types of incursion that otherwise have almost nothing in common except that each represents an interference with the right of the plaintiff to be let alone. Goodrich, 188 Conn. at 127-28, 448 A.2d 1317 (quoting Prosser, Torts (4th ed.1971) § 117, p. 804) (quotation marks omitted). The four categories of invasion of privacy are: (a) unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another; (b) appropriation of the other's name or likeness; (c) unreasonable publicity given to the other's private life; or (d) publicity that unreasonably places the other in a false light before the public. Id. at 128, 448 A.2d 1317. Caro specifically pled invasion of privacy by unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another, as opposed to a general claim of invasion of privacy. Connecticut courts have interpreted this version of the tort as the intentional invasion upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns . . . if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. Bonanno v. Dan Perkins Chevrolet, No. CV 99-066602, 2000 WL 192182, at  (Conn.Super.Ct. Feb.4, 2000) (quoting 3 Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 652B (1977)); accord Birge v. Med. Elec. Distribs., Inc., No. XXXXXXXXX, 2009 WL 1959393, at  (Conn.Super.Ct. June 5, 2009); Hellanbrand v. Nat'l Waste Assocs., LLC, No. CV 075010727, 2008 WL 442136, at  (Conn.Super.Ct. Jan.31, 2008). Invasion of privacy through intrusion upon seclusion presents a problem for Caroit is a tort that occurs through the act of interception itself. The intrusion itself makes the defendant subject to liability, even though there is no publication or other use of any kind of the . . . information outlined. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B cmt. b (1977). [7] Nothing more is required after the interception is made for liability to attach based on this tort. All that is required is that the tortfeasor intended to commit the act that was the basis for the invasionas Caro alleges here, setting up the iPhone and hitting record. The remaining three categories of invasion of privacy cannot be accomplished simply by intercepting one's communications; the tortfeasor is required to take an affirmative step or steps beyond the recording or the nature of the tort is such that interception would not further it. See Gleason v. Smolinski, No. NNH CV 065005107S, 2009 WL 2506607, at -7 (Conn.Super.Ct. July 20, 2009) (detailing elements necessary to make out a cause of action under each category of invasion of privacy). The language and history of the Wiretap Act indicate that Congress authored the exception to the one-party consent rule to prevent abuses stemming from use of the recording not the mere act of recording. [8] Connecticut's tort of invasion of privacy by intrusion upon the seclusion of another occurs through the simple act of the recording itself and therefore cannot satisfy the Wiretap Act's requirement of a separate and independent tortious intent. Based on the facts alleged in Caro's complaint, intrusion upon the seclusion of another is the only category of invasion of privacy that could have possibly transpired here and Caro did not tell us or the district court if he has another tort in mind. Even if Caro were granted leave to amend his complaint and given the opportunity to allege that Weintraub had the intent to invade his privacy, that intent could only apply to invasion of privacy by intrusion upon the seclusion of another, which we hold cannot serve as the basis for the statutorily required tortious intent. Thus, we need not reach the question of whether any of the other three categories of invasion of privacy could serve as a predicate to the necessary intent. We need only say here that to bring a claim under the Wiretap Act, the offender must intercept with tortious intent that relates to a tort independent from the act of recording itself, and invasion of privacy by intrusion on the seclusion of another cannot serve that purpose. Because Caro does not allege an independent tort that could provide the basis for the tortious intent necessary to bring a claim under the Wiretap Act, allowing him leave to amend his complaint would be futile.