Opinion ID: 2622669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: false light invasion of privacy and defamation share the same statute of limitations

Text: ¶31 We first take up defendants' claim that Dr. Jensen's recovery for false light invasion of privacy based on the first two broadcasts must be vacated because the one-year statute of limitations for defamation [4] governs claims for false light invasion of privacy, and Dr. Jensen filed his complaint more than one year after the broadcasts aired. The trial court ruled as a matter of law that the tort of defamation was sufficiently different from false light invasion of privacy to place it beyond the reach of defamation's statute of limitations. The trial court reasoned that since no statute of limitations expressly applies to invasion of privacy torts, Dr. Jensen's false light invasion of privacy claim fell within the ambit of Utah's four-year catch-all statute of limitations for relief not otherwise provided for by law. Utah Code Ann. § 78-12-25(3) (2000). [5] ¶32 We now assess anew the legal question of whether false light invasion of privacy enjoys a degree of kinship with defamation so close as to warrant a sharing of limitations periods. This undertaking of legal taxonomy requires that we examine the features of both torts to identify what characteristics, if any, they have in common. We must assess the relationship between the two claims in the context of the text and purpose of section 78-12-25(3). ¶33 We begin with an examination of the relevant statutory provisions. The legislature has assigned a one-year limitations period to actions for libel and slander. [6] Utah Code Ann. § 78-12-29(4). The United States District Court for Utah has predicted that we could rule that this one-year limitations period applies to defamation actions. Watkins v. Gen. Refractories Co., 805 F. Supp. 911, 917 (D. Utah 1992). Today we confirm the accuracy of this prediction. The second relevant statute is Utah's catch-all provision which establishes a four-year limitations period for relief not otherwise provided for by law. Utah Code Ann. § 78-12-25(3). ¶34 In assessing which of these two statutory provisions applies to Dr. Jensen's false light invasion of privacy claims, we pay little heed to the labels placed on a particular claim, favoring instead an evaluation based on the essence and substance of the claim. See Davidson Lumber Sales, Inc. v. Bonneville Inv., Inc., 794 P.2d 11, 14 (Utah 1990) (noting that whether a claim exists should be based on the nature of the action and not the pleading labels chosen). Applying this approach to Dr. Jensen's claims, we hold that they are properly classified as defamation claims and thus fall within the one-year limitation imposed by section 78-12-29. ¶35 Defamation is the act of harming the reputation of another by making a false statement to a third person. See West v. Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1007 (Utah 1994) (To state a claim for defamation, [one] must show that defendants published the statements concerning him, that the statements were false, defamatory, and not subject to any privilege, that the statements were published with the requisite degree of fault, and that their publication resulted in damage.). This is what Dr. Jensen said defendants did to him in his initial complaint. When the trial court dismissed his defamation claims on the first and second broadcasts because they were filed too late, Dr. Jensen amended his complaint to frame defendants' alleged misdeeds as false light invasion of privacy. The conduct Dr. Jensen complained of under this theory was the same, only the legal grounds for his grievances were different. We now turn to an examination of Dr. Jensen's alternative legal grounds for relief: false light invasion of privacy. ¶36 American jurisprudence has long recognized the tort of invasion of privacy. Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905); see also Ken Gormley, One Hundred Years of Privacy, 1992 Wis. L. Rev. 1335, 1353 (1992) (listing the first invasion of privacy cases: Marks v. Jaffa, 26 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 908 (1893) (publishing of picture of an actor, without consent, in newspaper popularity contest enjoined); Mackenzie v. Soden Mineral Springs Co., 18 N.Y.S. 240 (Sup. Ct. 1891) (use of physician's name in advertising medicine, without consent); Corliss v. F.W. Walker Co., 64 F. 280 (C.C.D. Mass. 1894) (publishing biography and portrait of George H. Corliss, deceased inventor, not an invasion of privacy because he was a public figure; [the] opinion may be read to suggest, however, that right to privacy exists)). The genesis of the tort of invasion of privacy in the United States is generally traced to an 1890 law review article authored by law partners Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis in The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193 (1890). ¶37 The jury returned a verdict finding both KTVX and Ms. Sawyers liable under multiple claims. Based on its findings of liability, the jury awarded Dr. Jensen general damages, damages for economic loss, and punitive damages. The trial court entered a seven-page, thirty-paragraph judgment detailing the various damages awards and their allocations. We will undertake to summarize the damages awards in a condensed form that includes only the damages awards subject to the challenges raised in this appeal. We will not describe the allocations of the various awards between Ms. Sawyers and KTVX as only the aggregate damages awards are affected by our rulings. ¶38 The jury was asked to consider separately Dr. Jensen's false light invasion of privacy claims arising from the combined first and second broadcasts and those linked to the third broadcast. This organizational scheme permitted the jury to consider separately Dr. Jensen's defamation claim tied to the third broadcast, a claim that unlike his defamation claims associated with the first and second broadcasts, had not been extinguished by the statute of limitations. ¶39 The jury awarded Dr. Jensen economic loss damages totaling $600,000, general damages of $100,000, and punitive damages of $245,300 based on defendants' liability for false light invasion of privacy on the first and second broadcasts. ¶40 Defendants' liability for defamation and false light invasion of privacy arising from the third broadcast resulted in an award of economic loss damages of $1 million, general damages of $500,000, and punitive damages of $450,600. ¶41 The jury awarded Dr. Jensen $50,000 in general damages and $40,000 in punitive damages arising from defendants' liability under common law intrusion upon seclusion. The jury awarded a like $90,000 aggregate sum to Dr. Jensen on each of two of the three state statutory claims. ¶42 The trial court supplemented its judgment with an award of costs to Dr. Jensen totaling $7,412.46, and attorney fees in the amount of $75,058.50. ¶43 In 1960, Dean Prosser surveyed the invasion of privacy landscape and could not identify an internally consistent or coherent formulation of privacy based torts. He summarized the state of the privacy tort law this way: What has emerged from the decisions is no simple matter. It is not one tort, but a complex of four. The law of privacy comprises four distinct kinds of invasion of four different interests of the plaintiff, which are tied together by the common name, but otherwise have almost nothing in common except that each represents an interference with the right of the plaintiff, in the phrase coined by Judge Cooley, to be let alone. Without any attempt to exact definition, these four torts may be described as follows: 1. Intrusion upon the plaintiff's 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. 4. Appropriation, for the defendant's advantage, of the plaintiff's name or likeness. It should be obvious at once that these four types of invasion may be subject, in some respects at least, to different rules; and that when what is said as to any one of them is carried over to another, it may not be at all applicable, and confusion may follow. Sullivan v. Pulitzer Broad. Co., 709 S.W.2d 475, 477 (Mo. 1986) (quoting Prosser, Privacy, 48 Cal. L. Rev. 382, 389 (1960)). ¶44 The second restatement of torts modified its approach to invasion of privacy to accommodate Dean Prosser's critique and proposed reforms. We, in turn, have fashioned our invasion of privacy jurisprudence around the second restatement. Russell v. Thomson Newspapers, Inc., 842 P.2d 896, 906-07 (Utah 1992). ¶45 False light invasion of privacy entered English common law by an aggrieved Lord Byron. Protective of his reputation as a poethis reputation for his nonpoetic behavior was controversial and, to many, beyond redemptionByron successfully appealed to the British courts to stay publication of a spurious and inferior poem attributed to him. Prosser, supra ¶ 38, at 398 (citing Lord Byron v. Johnston, 2 Mer. 29, 35 Eng. Rep. 851 (1816)). Although Byron's grievance sprang from his concern for his literary reputation, false light invasion of privacy does not necessarily provide redress for injury to a person's reputation. Instead, like each of the varieties of invasion of privacy, it owes its existence to the value society places on the right to be left alone. As we noted in Russell, it is because false light invasion of privacy protects a different interest than defamation that we have granted it status as an independent tort. 842 P.2d at 907. As we will discuss shortly, the difference in the interests protected by the two torts is an insufficient reason, particularly under the facts of this case, to justify the application of a separate statute of limitations to defamation and false light invasion of privacy. ¶46 An actionable portrayal of a person in a false light may or may not include the communication of defamatory information about the victim. As the examples in the Restatement illustrate, a person may conceivably be placed in a false light through the dissemination of praiseworthy but untrue information about that person, if a reasonable person would find the information highly objectionable. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E, illus. 9 (1977); see also Gary T. Schwartz, Explaining and Justifying a Limited Tort of False Light Invasion of Privacy, 41 Case W. Res. 885, 896 (1991) (reasoning that where nondisparaging false statements are disseminated about a person, unless nondisparaging false statements actually rise to the level of highly offensive, the harm they bring about may not be substantial enough to justify all the costs involved in the recognition and administration of a false light tort and advancing this contention, among others, to support his conclusion that false light as a distinct tort claim should be significantly narrowed). ¶47 Whether false light invasion of privacy should maintain its place within the invasion of privacy canon is a question that has stimulated spirited debate among courts and commentators. As of 2002, thirty state courts acknowledge false light as a viable claim in their jurisdictions. [7] Denver Publ'g Co. v. Bueno, 54 P.3d 893, 897 (2002) (citing in part Bueno v. Denver Publ'g Co., 32 P.3d 491, 495 (Colo. Ct. App. 2000)). Several states have either rejected the cause of action entirely or have not reached the issue because the facts of the case did not merit a review of false light invasion of privacy. Id. Twelve states have declined invitations to expressly welcome false light to join their invasion of privacy jurisprudence. Id.; see also Cain v. Hearst Corp., 878 S.W.2d 577, 586 (Tex. 1994). The Colorado Supreme Court aptly characterized false light invasion of privacy as `the least-recognized and most controversial aspect of invasion of privacy.' Denver Publ'g Co., 54 P.3d at 897 (quoting Cain, 878 S.W.2d at 579). In doing so, the Colorado court also referenced various authorities' contentions that false light invasion of privacy's position as a distinct tort claim is tenuous at best. Id. at 898. ¶48 Critics of false light invasion of privacy point to its substantial areas of overlap with defamation as a sound reason not to legitimize it. See, e.g., Schwartz, supra ¶ 41, at 887 (reasoning that a false [light] statement disparages the plaintiff's conduct or character. If it is disparaging, however, the plaintiff evidently has a defamation action against the defendant). ¶49 Both defamation and false light invasion of privacy provide legal redress for uninvited notoriety grounded in falsehoods caused by the defendant. Despite certain dissimilarities between defamation and false light invasion of privacy, such as the requirement that false information be publicized more widely to be actionable under false light invasion of privacy than is necessary to sustain an action in defamation, [8] and the possibility that highly offensive but nondefamatory statements could provide adequate grounds for a claim of false light invasion of privacy, false light invasion of privacy and defamation have much in common. The differences between the two claims are at their margins. It is important to note, however, that Dr. Jensen's claims do not occupy these margins. The operative facts of his false light invasion of privacy claims allege defamation. In fact, they are the same facts he pleaded under his defamation causes of action that were dismissed as untimely. ¶50 Defamation claims always reside in the shadow of the First Amendment. Because of its maturity within the common law, defamation jurisprudence has, over time, largely found a way to co-exist with the demands placed on it by the freedom of speech. In reaching an accommodation consistent with freedom of speech, defamation has accumulated a considerable assortment of defenses, privileges, heightened burdens of proof, and particularized standards of review. ¶51 The concern that claims like false light invasion of privacy with close ties to defamation might be prosecuted free of the First Amendment safeguards present in defamation actions has drawn the attention of both the drafters of the Restatements and this court. This issue is taken up in a comment to section 652E of the Restatement, which notes: When the false publicity is also defamatory so that either action can be maintained by the plaintiff, it is arguable that limitations of long standing that have been found desirable for the action for defamation should not be successfully evaded by proceeding upon a different theory of later origin, in the development of which the attention of the courts has not been directed to the limitations. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652E, cmt. e (1977). ¶52 We responded to a similar concern when we held that Utah's statutory fair report privilege, nominally applicable to allegations of defamation, extended to a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress tied to the same operative facts that gave rise to defamation claims brought by a nurse against a reporter and newspaper. Russell, 842 P.2d at 902-03. We underscored our holding with citations to cases that applied shorter statutes of limitation for defamation and libel to causes of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress and false light invasion of privacy that were tied to defamatory statements. Id. at 906 n.37. ¶53 We are persuaded that the statute of limitations cases used in Russell to buttress the merits of applying the fair report privilege to a cause of action closely allied to defamation are equally persuasive for the actual propositions they advance: that the statute of limitations for defamation governs claims based on the same operative facts that would support a defamation action. In recognition of the possibility that a false light invasion of privacy claim may turn on operative facts that do not include defamation, we further limit our holding to the facts present here and extend the one-year limit to false light invasion claims that flow from allegedly defamatory statements. ¶54 Several additional considerations contribute to our conviction of the soundness of this holding. Because, as this case clearly attests, virtually any defamation claim may be recast as an action for false light invasion of privacy, were we to assign catch-all status to false light invasion of privacy we would effectively neuter the one-year defamation limitation. An express one-year statutory limitations period for defamation stands as the implied product of the legislature's consideration of the various policy considerations that inform the span of time appropriate to bring an action. ¶55 A shorter limitations period for defamation can be explained and justified as an acknowledgment of importance of the free speech interests with which defamation collides. A shorter defamation period reflects the importance placed on freedom of speech by restricting the time those making statements are exposed to legal challenges, thereby reducing the chilling effect on speech that may accompany the prospect of defending statements well beyond their shelf lives. By encouraging persons aggrieved by allegedly defamatory statements to bring claims promptly, a shorter limitations period also increases the opportunities for defendants to take prompt and meaningful remedial steps to mitigate a plaintiff's damages by, for example, publishing retractions. ¶56 The characterization of section 78-12-25(3) as a catch-all carries with it the implication that none of the claims captured by it will have enjoyed the benefit of an individualized assessment of an appropriate statute of limitations. Therefore in light of strong affinity between defamation and Dr. Jensen's false light invasion of privacy claims based on defendants' defamatory statements, the assignment of those claims to the more fully reasoned statutory category is superior to casting the claim into the catch-all classification and disregarding all consequences of the substantial commonality of the claims. ¶57 We have not been asked to re-evaluate the status of false light invasion of privacy in the tort law of our state. Moreover, our discussion of the relationship between defamation and false light invasion of privacy should not be interpreted as an invitation to reconsider the viability of false light invasion of privacy. We remain sufficiently persuaded that there is certain unacceptable conduct that could be within the reach of false light invasion of privacy, but not defamation. Rather, our discussion bears on the narrow issue of whether the defamation statute of limitations should apply to claims of false light invasion of privacy. ¶58 We are cautious about describing in any detail the scope or contours of actions for false light invasion of privacy that do not involve allegations of defamatory statements. These are not relevant here. Dr. Jensen's false light invasion of privacy claims are tied to the same operative facts that grounded his defamation claims. Accordingly, we vacate the verdicts relating to false light invasion of privacy on the first and second broadcasts.