Court Opinion

ID: 9566626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:41:23.735047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:44.204788
License: Public Domain

ALMA WILSON, Justice,
with whom SIMMS, Justice, joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I concur with reversal of the jury verdict, I must dissent to the majority’s disposition of the degree of fault required to prove the tort of false light invasion of privacy.
The evidence presented in this case supported a different cause of action than the one pled. Although the plaintiff pled false light invasion of privacy, the facts presented supported a cause of action for libel, which was time barred.
At the trial the evidentiary gist related almost entirely to alleged harm to reputation. Though Appellee lived in Arizona at the time of the publication in question, and no one in Arizona mentioned the article to him, Appellee testified that when he traveled to Oklahoma some time later to visit his parents, friends ridiculed and teased him in jest. Appellee testified that: “I knew that they knew I didn’t commit the crime, they knew I hadn’t died, of course, they seen me physically, but it got to a point where I really became very disoriented because of the ridicule_” (Emphasis supplied.) During closing arguments, Appellee’s counsel stated, “Let’s talk about reputation. What’s more precious than a reputation?” Counsel repeatedly stressed the “thousands and thousands and thousands” of people who read the article and urged recompense to the Appellee therefor. The jury returned a 10-2 verdict for Appellee.
An action for violation of the right of privacy is not concerned with the plaintiff’s character or reputation as in an action for libel; but is concerned with alleged injury to the plaintiff’s mental peace and comfort. Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 87 S.Ct. 534, 17 L.Ed.2d 456 (1967). Such loss of mental tranquility must result directly and immediately from the act complained of. Thus, the right protected by the action for invasion of privacy is a personal right, peculiar to the individual whose privacy is invaded. The conduct of third persons, apart from the actor or entity which brings about the alleged loss, is therefore not a factor in an invasion of privacy action. Damages are recoverable because the publicity is likely to cause and does cause severe emotional distress and not because of the amount of harm to reputation, as in defamation by libel or slander. In this respect an action for invasion of privacy based upon “false light” publication and an action for defamation by libel or slander differ. Both actions, nevertheless, involve exposure to the public view and in some fact situations an action brought for invasion of privacy by “false light” publication conceivably might have been brought as libel per quod. See McCormack v. Oklahoma Publishing Company, 613 P.2d 737, 741 (Okl.1980). However, if the action is not brought as libel per quod, whether by reason of the expiration of the statute of limitations for libel or otherwise, defamatory imputations of character and reputation should be stripped from the case as extraneous circumstances. See Hazlitt v. Fawcett Publications, 116 F.Supp. 538, 545 (D.Conn.1953). Only then does this judicially created tort form comprise an independent, separate, and distinct basis of liability gpverned by the statute of limitations applicable to torts in general.
In the present case, Colbert relied upon defamatory elements at the trial of this matter. The action was brought solely upon an invasion of privacy theory. The trial court should have required Colbert to filter from the action all matters material to a claim of libel, as the statute of limitations as to a claim based upon libel had run. 12 O.S.1981 § 95 (Fourth). A plaintiff cannot have all the benefits of a claim for libel when such a claim is barred.
*294When stripped of defamatory allegations on which the statute of limitation has run, the gravamen of the action pled and proved by the plaintiff is no longer a viable cause of action. I would reverse and set aside the jury verdict and save for a proper case the first impression issue of the degree of fault required for the tort of false light invasion of privacy. The decision of the majority on this issue is both ill advised and premature.