Court Opinion

ID: 9687728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:43:56.747976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:30.581025
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge
(concurring specialty)-
I concur in the opinion of the court but write separately to express concern about the breadth of the rule announced in part II and to identify a narrower basis for resolving that part of the case.
As the court’s opinion states, to prevail on a claim of invasion of privacy by public disclosure of private facts, a plaintiff must prove that a defendant gave “publicity” to a matter concerning the plaintiffs private life. Bodah v. Lakeville Motor Express, *51Inc., 663 N.W.2d 550, 553 (Minn.2003). In this context, the term “publicity” means that “ ‘the matter is made public, by communicating it to the public at large, or to so many persons that the matter must be regarded as substantially certain to become one of public knowledge.’ ” Id. at 553-54 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D cmt. a (1977)). In light of this definition, a plaintiff has two alternative means of proving publicity. The court’s opinion analyzes Yath’s claim under the first alternative without considering the second. In doing so, the court’s opinion broadly holds that the first alternative is satisfied whenever private information “is posted on a publicly accessible Internet website.” Supra at 44.
It is unnecessary to create such a broad rule of law because there is evidence in the record that the person responsible for the forged “Rotten Candy” MySpace page sent it directly to a sufficiently large number of persons. Yath testified in her deposition that persons who were registered as “friends” on her real MySpace page received electronic messages that apparently contained either an image of the Rotten Candy web page or a link to it. Yath stated that between 60 and 80 persons were registered as friends on her real MySpace page. After she learned of the Rotten Candy web page, Yath polled more than ten of her MySpace friends and learned that each of them had seen the Rotten Candy web page. Yath’s former husband provided corroborating evidence. He testified that he received a “friend request” that called his attention to the Rotten Candy web page. He also testified that, shortly after he received the friend request, he received a telephone call from a friend alerting him to the Rotten Candy web page. He further testified that he spoke with other persons who received friend requests like the one he received, and he believes that “all our friends” received the same friend request. This evidence, taken in the light most favorable to Yath, is enough to allow a jury to find that the person responsible for the Rotten Candy web page directly communicated its contents to as many as 80 persons. It is sufficient for present purposes to conclude that this evidence creates a genuine issue of material fact on the issue of publicity pursuant to Bodah’s second means of proof. Consequently, it is unnecessary to create a per se rule that any posting of private information on the Internet constitutes publicity. Furthermore, it is unnecessary to give any consideration to the publicity issue in light of the lack of evidence that any party to this appeal is responsible for the Rotten Candy web page.
The court’s broad holding is inconsistent with the supreme court’s opinion in Bo-dah, which requires that a matter be communicated in such a manner that it is “ ‘regarded as substantially certain to become ... public knowledge.’ ” 663 N.W.2d at 557 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D cmt. a); see also id. at 554 (noting that Restatement defines “publicity” to include “communication that reaches, or is sure to reach, the public”). When considering whether the substantial certainty threshold is reached, inadvertent communications must be disregarded; the possibility that “unknown individuals might have accidentally received or perhaps eavesdropped upon” a communication is irrelevant because “[s]uch possible interception by nobody in particular [does not constitute] disclosure to the public (as the Restatement requires).” Id. at 558 (quoting Beverly v. Reinert, 239 Ill.App.3d 91, 179 Ill.Dec. 789, 606 N.E.2d 621, 626 (1992) (second alteration in original)). Thus, a plaintiff must do more than show that information posted on the Internet was “available to the public at large.” Supra at 43. The caselaw sometimes pre*52sumes publicity as a matter of law, thereby relieving a plaintiff of the obligation to prove with specific evidence that a matter was communicated to a large number of persons. But that presumption may apply only if the defendant’s means of publicity are so likely to be successful that a court can be “substantially certain” that private information has “ ‘become ... public knowledge.’ ” Bodah, 663 N.W.2d at 557 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D cmt. a).
The court’s holding is overbroad in two respects. First, it treats all Internet sites alike. The Bodah court stated that publicity is not determined by “ ‘the means of communication’ ” but, rather, by the “ ‘distinction ... between private and public communication.’ ” Id. at 554 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D cmt. a). Not all Internet sites are intended to disseminate information to large numbers of persons. Some information on the Internet consists of communication that is private in nature. One of the primary purposes of social-networking web sites is to allow people to communicate with friends and acquaintances.
Second, the court’s holding assumes that each and every Internet site actually is viewed or read by large numbers of persons. I have significant doubt whether that is true. The Bodah opinion relies heavily on the second version of the Restatement of Torts, which was released in 1977 and was concerned with only a few forms of mass media: newspapers, magazines, television, and motion pictures. Judges knew from common experience that the publications and broadcasts of the then-existing mass media not only were made available to large numbers of persons but also were actually received and consumed by significant portions of the target audiences. That knowledge allowed courts to assume that information published in newspapers or broadcast on the radio or television was made known to a large number of persons. That assumption was easy to make in 1977 and earlier decades when, in any given locale, the media outlets were finite in number and the full scope of their publications or broadcasts was reasonably well known or ascertainable. But the same assumption is not so easily made today with respect to the Internet. The number of Internet sites is very large. Inevitably, some web sites are rarely viewed or read by anyone other than the person who maintains the site. At present, I am unable to conclude with “substantial!] certain[ty],” Id. at 557-58, that merely because a particular web page exists, information on the web page actually has been communicated to a large number of persons. This is especially so with respect to a web page that was online for only two days, as is reflected by the evidence in this case.
Thus, I conclude that Yath has created a genuine issue of material fact on the issue of “publicity” pursuant to Bodah’s second means of proof.