Court Opinion

ID: 9848503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:21:07.022008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:21.052824
License: Public Domain

Fromme, J.,
dissenting. The majority after recognizing and properly limiting an action for intrusion of seclusion fails to consider the limitation inherent in the action. The opinion goes off on a tangent to hold the trial court erred in two statements of law which justify a new trial. In my view the trial court merely held the plaintiff failed to establish his cause of action. The admitted facts of this case giving rise to the claim of intrusion of seclusion bring the case within the recognized limitation that no action exists unless the wrongful intrusion is such as to outrage or cause mental suffering, shame, or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities. In ¶ 2 of the syllabus the court holds:
"One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude *362or seclusion of another, or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability .to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable man.” (Emphasis added.)
The last phrase of this syllabus delimits such an action. Intrusion of seclusion to be actionable must be highly offensive to a reasonable man. The common link uniting all of the cases which recognize the cause of action is the unwarranted, obtrusive and objectionable intrusion into the privacy of another. In this case the appellant admits (appellants brief page 10) it is not the embarrassment potential of the information obtained, it is the intrusion itself which the court should analyze to see if one’s seclusion has been intruded upon. The character of the intrusion should determine liability or non-liability. The degree of the mental anguish does not determine liability, only the amount of damages.
No court has said that every invasion of itself into another person’s private quarters constitutes an actionable invasion of privacy. It is only when the invasion is so outrageous that the traditional remedies of trespass, nuisance, intentional inflictions of mental distress, etc., will not adequately compensate a plaintiff for the insult to his individual dignity that an invasion of privacy action will lie. The intrusion itself must be patently offensive before an invasion of privacy action will he. The totality of the intrudeds conduct must be extreme, intentional and outrageous; the conduct must be so offensive that it would cause mental harm or anguish in a person of ordinary sensibilities. An invasion of privacy action should not be utilized to avoid the more stringent requirements of other torts designated to compensate an individual for physical or mental injury.
Before analyzing the facts of this case in light of the above law, we will first investigate one case relied upon by the appellant to support his position. In Ford Motor Company v. Williams, 108 Ga. App. 21, 132 S. E. 2d 206, the court found that the breaking into plaintiff’s house by the defendant’s agents constituted an intrusion of seclusion even though plaintiff was not present when such intrusion occurred. However, the court was not recognizing an intrusion of seclusion solely, because of the break-in; it merely acknowledged that defendant’s use of three marked police cars and a paddy wagon in front of plaintiff’s friends and neighbors was so patently outrageous, that it constituted an affront to the plaintiff’s dignity. The intrusion there was under such aggravating circum*363stances that it would constitute an intrusion of seclusion to any man of ordinary sensibilities.
Appellant himself asked the question in his brief, “. . . what kind of intrusion will outrage a person of ordinary sensibilities?” Although appellant correctly notes that malice is not an essential element of an action founded upon intrusion of seclusion, he still premises his cause of aetion’upon appellee’s alleged malicious intent to prove his alleged homosexual tendencies. Appellant has misconstrued the issue before this court. It is not whether the appellee’s alleged motive is so reprehensible that it brands her aotions an intrusion of seclusion; but rather it is whether the act itself (the removal of the hair from the brush and the tape) is so outrageous, regardless of appellee’s motives, that it would cause emotional harm to a person of ordinary sensibilities. Every theft of personal property may be upsetting or annoying; but it does not automatically give rise to an invasion of privacy action.
The alleged invasion of the appellant’s seclusion was not so callous or indifferent that it would outrage a reasonable man. Actually, the removal of the hair was performed in a very unobtrusive manner. The appellee’s activities herein lack the callous and objectionable characteristics which were present in every other case cited by the parties herein which is concerned with an intrusion of seclusion.
Whether or not the appellant may have an action in trespass, defamation, intentional infliction of mental harm, or some other remedy is not the question here. It is the appellant’s burden to prove all necessary elements of the theory before he will be granted recovery thereon. The admitted facts herein simply do not support appellant’s theory of recovery.
In the present case what was it that was highly offensive to appellant? In appellant’s brief the acts are characterized as follows:
“It later became clear how the hair was obtained from Mr. Froelich. It seems that Werbin [a friend of appellee] had tipped the orderly $5.00 to retrieve some hair from a hair brush which was in the plaintiff’s hospital room, and from a bandaid which had apparently held an I. V. secure to his arm and which had ripped out a few hairs upon removal.”
Considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the appellant the evidence is insufficient to establish a cause of action for intrusion of seclusion. The evidence was insufficient to establish *364that such acts were extreme, outrageous or highly offensive to a reasonable person. Accordingly the case should be affirmed.
Schroeder, J., joins in the foregoing dissent.