Court Opinion

ID: 9724143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:46:34.096895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:27.769476
License: Public Domain

BUTLER, J.
I dissent. With all deference to my colleagues, the majority opinion simply does not address the critical issue in this case—the First Amendment immunity to which the Times and Chance are entitled. As I read the record, the facts supporting immunity are not disputed, immunity is established and the Times and Chance are entitled to dismissal of the complaint. The majority discussion of elements of the invasion of privacy tort and its findings of triable issues of fact are irrelevant.
*1434I
The tort of invasion of privacy arising out of the publication of a private fact has these elements—a private fact, a public disclosure of the private fact and the matter so disclosed is offensive and objectionable to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities. (Forsher v. Bugliosi (1980) 26 Cal.3d 792, 808-809 [163 Cal.Rptr. 628, 608 P.2d 716].) The tort involves First Amendment concerns and the publisher is protected from liability if the published matter is newsworthy and does not reveal factors so offensive as to shock community notions of decency. (Briscoe v. Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (1971) 4 Cal.3d 529, 535, 541 [93 Cal.Rptr. 866, 483 P.2d 34, 57 A.L.R.3d 1]; Kapellas v. Kofman (1969) 1 Cal.3d 20, 35-36 [81 Cal.Rptr. 360 [459 P.2d 912].) The third element of the tort, the matter disclosed is offensive and objectionable to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities, equates to the second element of the protective shield—the publication does not reveal facts so offensive as to shock community notions of decency.
II
I ask the first question bearing on immunity—was the publication newsworthy?
“Newsworthiness” is a shorthand expression describing matters which are of legitimate concern to the public. (Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co. (1984) 154 Cal.App.3d 1040, 1048 [201 Cal.Rptr. 665].) Virgil v. Time, Inc. (9th Cir. 1975) 527 F.2d 1122 looked at California cases: “ ‘In determining what is a matter of legitimate public interest, account must be taken of the customs and conventions of the community; and in the last analysis what is proper becomes a matter of the community mores. The line is to be drawn when the publicity ceases to be the giving of information to which the public is entitled, and becomes a morbid and sensational prying into private lives for its own sake, with which a reasonable member of the public, with decent standards, would say that he had no concern. . . .'" (Id. at p. 1129, italics added.) While Briscoe posits a two-part protective test, newsworthiness and a shock to a community’s sense of decency, Virgil includes in its concept of newsworthiness the notion the matter is offensive to the community as measured by a reasonable member-of-the-public standard akin to that in the third element of the tort itself. (Ibid.) Other cases hold the requirement the matter must be newsworthy to defeat the claim of invasion of privacy requires consideration of a variety of factors, including (1) the social value of the facts published, (2) the depth of the publisher’s intrusion into ostensibly private affairs, and (3) the extent to which the party voluntarily assumed a position of public notoriety. (Briscoe v. Reader's Digest Assn., supra, 4 Cal.3d 529, 541; Kapellas v. Kofman, supra, 1 Cal.3d 20, 36; *1435Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co., supra, 154 Cal.App.3d 1040, 1048; Diaz v. Oakland Tribune, Inc. (1983) 139 Cal.App.3d 118, 132 [188 Cal.Rptr. 762]; Capra v. Thoroughbred Racing Ass’n (9th Cir. 1986) 787 F.2d 463, 464.) These enumerated factors are restatements of Virgil’s concept of newsworthiness.
No citation of authority is required for the proposition a murder is a newsworthy event as a matter of law. When Doe opened the apartment door, she walked upon a public stage, the scene of Rende’s murder. Discoverer of the body, she became a part of a newsworthy event. Restatement Second of Torts, section 652D, comment f, points out: “Involuntary public figures. There are other individuals who have not sought publicity or consented to it, but through their own conduct or otherwise have become a legitimate subject of public interest. They have, in other words, become ‘news.’ Those who commit crime or are accused of it may not only not seek publicity but may make every possible effort to avoid it, but they are nevertheless persons of public interest, concerning whom the public is entitled to be informed. The same is true as to those who are the victims of crime or are so unfortunate as to be present when it is committed, as well as those who are the victims of catastrophes or accidents or are involved in judicial proceedings or other events that attract public attention. These persons are regarded as properly subject to the public interest, and publishers are permitted to satisfy the curiosity of the public as to its heroes, leaders, villains and victims, and those who are closely associated with them. As in the case of the voluntary public figure, the authorized publicity is not limited to the event that itself arouses the public interest, and to some reasonable extent includes publicity given to facts about the individual that would otherwise be purely private. ...” (Italics added.) The sole reference to Doe in the Times’s story of the murder, a newsworthy event, is this sentence: “Rende’s roommate [Jane Doe] discovered the body at about 12:15 A.M. when she returned to the studio apartment they shared.” Section 652D, comment f, of the Restatement Second of Torts, points out the article need not be limited to the murder itself and may include “to some reasonable extent” facts about Doe. The only facts published by the Times were her name and her discovery of the body. The fact of discovery is essential to the article—no body, no murder, no story. Doe’s identification in the article which, of course, made no reference to the man whom she saw in the apartment, does not offend the values placed by society upon one’s identity. It is true Doe’s name was not listed in the telephone directory, tax rolls, city directory or on the apartment door. That nonlisting was a personal preference. While the Times’s publication of her name may have been offensive to her, we look to the reaction of the responsible person of ordinary sensibilities. (Virgil v. Time, Inc., supra, 527 F.2d 122, 129.) Our society requires personal identification to cash a check, drive a car, open a bank account, get married, *1436license a dog and get a job. Birth certificates tell our names. Death certificates toll our demise. Surely, the publication of Doe’s name by the Times without more cannot be offensive and objectionable to that reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities who daily produces identification and whose name is continually retrieved from computer storage. (See McNutt v. New Mexico State Tribune Company (1975) 88 N.M. 162 [538 P.2d 804, 84 A.L.R.3d. 1148]; Strutner v. Dispatch Printing Co. (1982) 2 Ohio App.3d 377 [442 N.E.2d 129]; Annot., Publication of Address as Well as Name of Person as Invasion of Privacy (1978) 84 A.L.R.3d 1159-1161.)
The conclusion is inescapable. The Times printed an account of the murder, a newsworthy event. Doe as the discoverer of the body became a part of that event. Her identification as the discoverer does not offend social values or constitute an impermissible intrusion into her private life. She, unhappily, became an involuntary public figure. As a matter of law, the publication of Doe’s name was newsworthy.
I ask the second question in application of the privilege—was the publication so offensive as to shock community notions of decency? The simple sentence in the Times’s article, “Rende’s roommate [Jane Doe] discovered the body at about 12:15 A.M. when she returned to the studio apartment they shared,” cannot offend community notions of decency. That sentence is the only reference to Doe. The story does not describe her encounter with the shadowed man or suggest she can identify the suspect. A reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities reading the story could draw no inference from the reference to Doe that she was placed in fear the suspect might seek to silence her. A person with those sensibilities could not conclude the publication of Doe’s name is offensive or objectionable.
The publication of Doe’s name is protected and does not give rise to publisher liability for invasion of privacy as the disclosed matter, as a matter of law, is not so offensive as to shock the community’s sense of decency, and is newsworthy. The majority opinion extensively discusses the issue whether Doe’s name was a private or a public fact. As the publication is protected, the status of the name, private or public, is irrelevant.
Ill
The majority opinion holds offensiveness of the publication and shock to the community sense of decency present triable issues of fact. Doe’s declarations in opposition to the motion for summary judgment do not include matters touching upon offensiveness or shock to a sense of decency arising from the publication of her name. She goes beyond the four corners of the news account of the murder into her subjective reactions to the publication *1437of her name, averring shock, distress, fear, apprehension for her safety, loss of sleep, loss of job and move to another city. Doe fails to present any evidence to set aside the Times’s shield of immunity. The majority opinion looks to the subjective reaction of the person who asserts an invasion of privacy by a media defendant to determine the scope of First Amendment guarantees of freedom of the press. The majority opinion thus discards the reaction of the reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities whether the published matter is offensive and objectionable. The reporter and the editor are now hostage to the paranoiac, the psychotic, the schizophrenic, whose reactions to publication now determine the scope of First Amendment media immunity. Should the majority view prevail, I forecast the weather in newsrooms across the state as continued freezing temperatures with chilling effects on First Amendment guarantees of freedom of the press.
IV
Doe also pleaded causes of action for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She incorporated in those causes of action the substantive allegations of her invasion of privacy claim. The gravamen of all three causes of action is the publication of her name. Having concluded there are no triable issues of fact with respect to Doe’s invasion of privacy cause of action, the Times is entitled to summary judgment on the infliction of emotional distress causes of action as they are based on the same facts. (Reader's Digest Assn. v. Superior Court, supra, 37 Cal.3d 244, 265.)
V
I would issue a peremptory writ of mandate directing the trial court to vacate its order denying Chance and the Times’s motion for summary judgment and to enter its order granting the motions.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 25, 1988, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Butler, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Petitioners’ application for review by the Supreme Court was denied May 19, 1988. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.