Opinion ID: 2451869
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Dual Foundations of the Privacy Right

Text: With the declaration that [t]his court has never expressly held that a tort for false light invasion of privacy exists, 844 S.W.2d at 200, Justices Phillips, Cook, and Hecht [2] carve a major inroad into the right to privacy that has until today been ensured to all Texans. Yet they only accomplish with subtlety what concurring Justices Gonzalez and Cornyn would do more directly. Until now, this court has served as a guardian of a broad right to privacy, assured both by the common law and under the Texas Constitution, including protection against portrayal in a false light.
While the right to privacy is often traced to an article co-authored by Louis D. Brandeis, [3] the legal and ethical concepts of a right to be let alone predate his explication of the term privacy. The concept pervades our jurisprudence; both the federal and state protection of a right to privacy arises from a combination of constitutional law, common law, and statutory regulation. Robert Aldrich, Privacy Protection Law in the United States 3-9 (Dep't Comm.1982) (The roots of privacy protection law in this country are found in the Constitution and the common law as well as in early statutes.); see also William L. Prosser, Privacy, 48 Cal.L.Rev. 383 (1960). The fundamental nature of this right has been repeatedly recognized. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 153, 93 S.Ct. 705, 726-27, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973) (right of privacy encompasses woman's decision whether or not to terminate pregnancy); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) (use of contraception in the home by married persons is protected); Texas State Employee's Union v. Texas Dep't of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, 746 S.W.2d 203 (Tex.1987) (privacy right bars mandatory polygraph testing). The evolving concept of a right to privacy in Texas exists prior to, and independent of, the Texas Constitution; it is a core democratic value expressed and protected in the [state] constitution. James C. Harrington, The Texas Bill of Rights 39 (Supp. 1992). In Billings v. Atkinson, 489 S.W.2d 858 (Tex.1973), this court explicitly declared that an unwarranted invasion of the right of privacy constitutes a legal injury for which a remedy will be granted. Id. at 860 (emphasis added). Allowing recovery for damages resulting from phone wiretapping, we defined privacy as the right of an individual to be left alone, ... the right to be free from the unwarranted appropriation or exploitation of one's personality, the publicizing of one's private affairs with which the public has no legitimate concern, or 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. Id. We later relied on this same statement of the Court reveal[ing] that the tort `invasion of privacy' is actually a recognition of several `privacy interests' considered to be deserving of protection. Industrial Found, of the South v. Texas Indus. Bd., 540 S.W.2d 668, 682 (Tex.1976), cert, denied, 430 U.S. 931, 97 S.Ct. 1550, 51 L.Ed.2d 774 (1977) (citing William L. Prosser, Privacy, 48 Cal.L.Rev. 383, 389 (I960)). We described four parts of the tort of invasion of privacy: (1) Intrusion upon the plaintiffs seclusion or solitude, or into his private affairs; (2) Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts about the plaintiff; (3) Publicity which places the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye; and (4) Appropriation, for the defendant's advantage, of the plaintiffs name or likeness. 540 S.W.2d at 682. This same four-part tort [4] has been adopted by the Restatement (Second) of Torts ง 652A (1965), and recognized in other Texas courts. See J. Hadley Edgar, Jr. & James B. Sales, 3 Texas Torts and Remedies ง 53.01[3], at 53-7 n. 11 (1990) (hereinafter Edgar & Sales) (the four parts of invasion of privacy are accepted by most, if not all jurists and writers today); Clarke v. Denton Publishing Co., 793 S.W.2d 329, 331 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1990, no writ) (Industrial Foundation recognized the four parts of a tort of invasion of privacy previously acknowledged in Billings); Justice v. Belo Broadcasting Corp., 472 F.Supp. 145 (N.D.Tex.1979) (in Billings, Texas recognized all four categories of invasion of privacy, including false light, or logically would under that precedent). An action for invasion of privacy inclusive of false light has been accepted by a substantial number of other states, [5] and squarely rejected by only one. [6] Texas is universally recognized by commentators and compendia [7] as well as by the federal courts [8] to have accepted the majority rule recognizing a false light cause of action. Numerous Texas courts of appeals, following our decisions in Billings and Industrial Foundation, have applied or recognized the false light cause of action. [9] How odd that the only source of new-found doubt as to the validity of the false light tort is found in today's writings, which coincide with federal retrenchment and deference to the states for the protection of privacy rights. [10]
Not only is this otherwise firmly entrenched common law privacy right eroded, but the interrelated constitutional parameters of that right are threatened. This court's commitment to that liberty was, until today, unquestioned. In Texas State Employee's Union, when state employees challenged mandatory state use of polygraph testing, this court found a right of individual privacy implicit among those `general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free government' established by the Texas Bill of Rights. 746 S.W.2d at 205. The Department's policy was found to violate the state constitutional protectpon of] personal privacy from unreasonable intrusion. Id. Constitutional and common law rights of privacy have evolved together such that constitutional implications are frequently discussed by commentators in analyzing the false light tort. See W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on The Law of Torts 866-68 (5th ed. 1984) (hereinafter Prosser & Keeton) (constitutional protection embraces ... interests protected by the common law action); see generally Alfred Hill, Defamation and Privacy under The First Amendment, 76 Colum.KRev. 1205 (1976). State constitutional privacy guarantees have accordingly provided a basis for recognizing the false light cause of action. See, e.g., Godbehere v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 162 Ariz. 335, 783 P.2d 781, 788 (1989). Disregarding the constitutional dimensions of privacy facilitates the objective of the five members of this court who would substantially revise prior caselaw based on an arguably less fundamental common law foundation while narrowly limiting any constitutional privacy right to protection from governmental agency polygraph tests. [11] Today's attempt to pigeonhole privacy jeopardizes important interestsโthe right to choose whether to carry a child to term, to avoid unwarranted governmental invasions of privacy, to maintain some semblance of personal freedom in the technology ageโ by a mere declaration that at most these arise only from common law and possess no constitutional dimension. Justices Gonzalez and Cornyn seek to distract attention from this reality in their unsupported declaration that this case has absolutely nothing to do with constitutional privacy rights. 844 S.W.2d at 203, n. 1 (Gonzalez, J., concurring and dissenting). Today's writings provide a clear indication of the newly weakened status of all privacy rights in Texas at the hands of five members of this court. Today, the threads of the interwoven fabric of the common and constitutional law are unraveled leaving peepholes intruding into the privacy rights of Texans. Each of the commentaries relied upon by Justices Gonzalez and Cornyn as questioning false light actions also includes a direct attack on the very concept of a right to privacy. These justices join those who view not just false light but the entire concept of privacy in tort law as infused with pettiness, unable to function as a constitutional concept and who conclude that the right of privacy ... failed in three-quarters of a century to amount to anything. Harry Kalven, Jr., Privacy in Tort LawโWere Warren and Brandeis Wrong?, 31 Law & Contemp.Probs. 326, 327, 328, 341 (1966) (emphasis added). Surely the landmark holding in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), grounding on this very right to privacy a woman's vital right to choose whether or not to terminate her pregnancy, and our subsequent ruling in Texas State Employee's Union make this view untenable. Today's writings would apparently return us to a time when enforcement of privacy rights was unknown. [12] While false light shares similarities with the defamation tort, the two are demarcated by significant differences: It is not ... necessary to the action for invasion of privacy that the plaintiff be defamed. It is enough that he is given unreasonable and highly objectionable publicity that attributes to him characteristics, conduct or beliefs that are false, and so is placed before the public in a false position. When this is the case and the matter attributed to the plaintiff is not defamatory, the rule here stated affords a different remedy, not available in an action for defamation. Restatement (Second) of Torts ง 652E, comment b (emphasis added). The remedy is different because the two torts exist to redress different types of wrongful conduct. Godbehere, 783 P.2d at 787; see also Joseph J. Hemmer, Jr., The Supreme Court and the First Amendment 211 (1986) (False light involves the publication of false information about an individual, whether it is defamatory or not.); Edgar 53.05940, at 53-57 (discussing some fundamental differences between the two torts). [13] The critical conceptual distinction now disregarded is that defamation law protects against injury to reputation; false light, like any other privacy protection law, preserves the right to be let alone. See Godbehere, 783 P.2d at 787; Renwick, 312 S.E.2d at 415 (Meyer, J., concurring and dissenting); Prosser & Keeton at 864; Recent Developments at 110; Wade at 1094; Thomas I. Emerson, The Right to Privacy and Freedom of the Press, 14 Harv.C.R.-C.L. L.Rev. 329, 333 (1979); see also 57 A.L.R. 4th ง 6, at 88-90, and cases cited therein. These are two separate interests. Two different injuries are sufferedโwith false light [i]t is enough ... that the publicity [causes] severe emotional distress, while with defamation there is required a showing of special damages arising from harm to reputation. Prosser & Keeton at 866. These differences weigh against elimination of the false light tort on grounds of overlap.
A cause of action that denies parties, particularly media defendants, a truth defense has the potential of chilling speech. That is precisely why we in the past have applied special substantive free speech rules in addition to procedural requirements. See Star Telegram v. Walker, 834 S.W.2d 54 (Tex.1992) (freedom to print already public information). There is no reason why such special rules cannot be applied in the false light context, [14] particularly when media defendants are involved. [15] An appropriate standard for liability such as that the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard, Restatement (Second) of Torts ง 652E(b), has been found to offer ample protection for free expression and to discourage any false light litigation explosion. See Godbehere v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 783 P.2d at 788-89 (finding the Restatements standards adequate to preserve free speech). In no way does the false light action restrict speech in any manner beyond our existing tort law; indeed, Justices Gonzalez and Cornyn amply demonstrate that many jurisdictions have preserved their protection of speech by [adopting reasonable limitations on] false light actions. 844 S.W.2d at 210 (Gonzalez, J., concurring and dissenting). One leading commentator and advocate for freedom of expression has concluded that false-light invasion of privacy actions ... serve the state interests in deterring the publication of damaging false information and protecting reputation. Rodney A. Smolla, Emotional Distress and the First Amendment' An Analysis of Hustler v. Falwell, 20 Ariz.St.LJ. 423, 441 (1988). [16] This liability standard also comports with the broad guarantees of article one, section eight of the Texas Constitution, that persons speak freely, unhindered by interference from government or private persons, but with post-speech remedies for abuse of that privilege. See Davenport v. Garcia, 834 S.W.2d 4, 10 (Tex.1992, orig. proceeding). [17] Rather than striking a balance that bolsters freedom of expression, today's action simply denigrates the right to privacy.