Court Opinion

ID: 9787778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:24:21.897231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:00.391853
License: Public Domain

Peck, P. J. (dissenting).
The defendant’s support of the decision below, dismissing the complaint, rests largely upon the decision of this court in Oma v. Hillman Periodicals (281 App. Div. 240) in which Mr. Justice Callahan and I dissented. *472While I adhere to the view expressed in that dissent, I would not advance it again against the authority of the majority opinion if I thought the decision there was controlling here. There is undoubtedly a close resemblance between the two cases and perhaps the only difference is that the Oma case dealt with an article of current interest in a periodical while the present case relates to a book. I think there is a difference. Reporting of current events in newspapers and magazines has always been given special latitude in the allowable area of picturization under the Civil Rights Law. A book, however, although it deals with a subject of current interest, is more deliberate in its formation and permanent in its format. A book is not current in the same sense as a newspaper or a magazine.
Assuming that currency of interest of the subject matter warrants the use, in illustration of a magazine article, of a photograph of a person not connected with the text of the article, I can still see no justification for using the picture of such a person on the jacket of a book. I might add that the plaintiff in the Oma case (supra) was something of a “public figure ” in the boxing world, which was under scrutiny and criticism in the article there involved, while the plaintiff here does not appear to be anything more than a rank-and-file worker on the waterfront. He is not otherwise identified with the subject or text of the book.
I regard the use of plaintiff’s photograph in this case as being for the purposes of trade without claim on the consideration which has been extended to newspaper and magazine articles of current interest.
In my opinion the order appealed from should be reversed and the motion to dismiss the complaint denied. If the complaint were to be reinstated, paragraph 18 of the answer should then be struck as irrelevant to a complete defense.
Breitel, Botein, Rabin and Frank, JJ., concur in Per Curiam opinion; Peck, P. J., dissents in opinion.
Judgment affirmed, with costs to respondent.