Court Opinion

ID: 9564133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:54:50.579973+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:14.326957
License: Public Domain

Undercofler, Justice,
dissenting. The majority opinion ignores
the established rule in Georgia that "where an incident is a matter of public interest, or the subject matter of a public investigation, a publication in connection therewith can be a violation of no one’s legal right of privacy.” Waters v. Fleetwood, 212 Ga. 161, 167 (91 SE2d 344). This qualification on the public disclosure tort comports with the overwhelming majority of cases that have considered the public interest aspect of a publication. See Prosser, Law of Torts 823-833 (4th Ed. 1971); 18 ALR3d 875, 882. Indeed, the American Law Institute has recognized and approved this qualification, and has taken the position that persons who reluctantly become subjects of public interest by virtue of some "striking catastrophe” are nevertheless "subject to the privileges which publishers have to satisfy the curiosity of the public as to their leaders, heroes, villians and victims.” Restatement of Torts § 867, comment c (1939).
The public interest qualification is grounded in the rights of freedom of press and speech granted in both the Georgia Constitution and the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution. In reference to these fundamental freedoms this court said in Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190, 204 (50 SE 68), that "[t]he truth may be spoken, written, or printed about all matters of a public nature, as well as matters of a private nature in which the public has a legitimate interest.” The constitutional freedoms of press and speech are so jealously guarded that even publication of false reports of matters of public interest are privileged absent a showing that the defendant "published the report with knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth.” Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 388 (87 SC 534, 17 LE2d 456). Certainly the publication of true information regarding a matter of public interest can be no less privileged. The constitutional privilege is controlling regardless of whether recovery would be predicated on violation of statute, or on some theory akin to negligence per se with the statute providing the duty or standard of care owed the plaintiff, or, as the majority would have it, on the basis "that reasonable men would find the invasion *68highly offensive.”
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Grice and Justice Jordan concur in this dissent.