Court Opinion

ID: 9490556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:47:03.078231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:10.300787
License: Public Domain

WHALEY, District Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in Parts III, IV, V, and VI of the majority’s opinion. I respectfully dissent from Part II because I do not agree with the majority’s interpretation of the term “confidential communication” or its application of that interpretation to the facts of this case.
I.
A court’s inquiry into the meaning of a statutory term is controlled, of course, by the meaning that the enacting legislature intended to give that term. As the majority notes, the best indicator of that intent is the actual language approved by those legislators. I do not agree, however, that the interpretation of “confidential communication” embraced by the majority is the meaning that the California State Legislature (“Legislature”) intended to give that term when it enacted the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“Privacy Act”), Cal.Penal Code §§ 630-37.6.
As an initial matter, I am not convinced the Privacy Act exhaustively defines the term “confidential communication.” On its face, the Privacy Act does not purport to “define” or exhaustively trace the legal parameters of this term. Instead, the provision that addresses the meaning of “confidential communication” merely provides examples of circumstances the Legislature deemed relevant to the determination of whether a communication is confidential. Cal.Penal Code § 632(c) (“The term ‘confidential communication’ includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes ....”) (emphasis added). This approach — describing a limited number of categories of circumstances where communications are presumptively confidential or noneonfidential — leaves open the question of whether other categories of relevant circumstances may exist. Treating the first clause of § 632(c) as an exhaustive definition of “confidential communication” closes the door that the Legislature left open for the further development of this definition.1
*469I also do not agree with the majority’s prediction as to which, if any, of the California Court of Appeal’s differing interpretations of “confidential communication” the Supreme Court of California would adopt. Before addressing this issue, though, it is worthwhile to outline the positions that the Court of Appeal has taken on this question.
As a starting point, the Court of Appeal’s decisions agree that the determination of whether or not a communication is confidential is controlled by the reasonable expectations of the parties, not their subjective assumptions. O’Laskey v. Sortino, 224 Cal.App.3d 241, 273 Cal.Rptr. 674, 677 (1990). This conclusion is supported by the text of the statute. See Cal.Penal Code § 632(c) (“The term ‘confidential communication’ includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate ....”) (emphasis added).
Beyond this point, agreement breaks down and the reported decisions diverge as to what a party must reasonably expect. Two of these approaches have been identified by the majority: 1) whether the party reasonably expected that the communication would not be divulged, O’Laskey, 273 Cal.Rptr. at 677; and, 2) whether the party reasonably expected that no one was listening in on, overhearing, or recording the conversation, Frio v. Superior Court, 203 Cal.App.3d 1480, 250 Cal.Rptr. 819, 824 (1988). A third, additional strain is also discernible in these decisions: whether the “circumstances ... reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires [the communication] be confined to such parties, or ... that the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be recorded.” Deeter v. Angus, 179 Cal.App.3d 241, 224 Cal.Rptr. 801, 807, (1986) (citing Warden v. Kahn, 99 Cal.App.3d 805, 160 Cal.Rptr. 471, 477 (1979)) (emphasis added). See also Friddle v. Epstein, 16 Cal.App.4th 1649, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 85, 90-91 (1993) (focusing on whether evidence indicated parties desired confidentiality).
Neither the O’Laskey nor the Frio standards are sufficiently faithful to the text of § 632(e) to warrant their adoption as a definitive interpretation of “confidential communication.” The Frio standard’s deficiencies are ably detailed in the majority opinion. The problem with the O’Laskey standard is that it is subject to the very same faults. As already discussed, the O’Laskey standard elevates an example of a confidential communication to the status of definition, the only difference' with Frio being that a different example is favored. Additionally, like the Frio standard, the O’Laskey standard renders a critical portion of the statutory text surplusage. Specifically, O’Laskey ignores the Legislature’s decision to focus on whether the circumstances indicate one of the parties “desires” that the communication not be divulged. Instead, O’Laskey reads into the statute a requirement that it be reasonable for the party to “expect” that the communication would not be divulged.
The O’Laskey standard’s subtle transformation of the text of § 632(c) works a substantial change in the scope of the Privacy Act’s protection of California citizens from the secret recording of their conversations. Most importantly, this shift transfers control over the confidentiality of the communication from the speaker to the listener or solicitor of the communication. For example, under the O’Laskey approach, a reporter for a tabloid notorious for breaking'promises not to divulge information would have free rein to secretly tape newsworthy conversations because it would be unreasonable to expect the reporter not to divulge those statements. In these same circumstances, however, § 632’s text suggests that a cause of action should exist because the express statement of a desire for non-divulgence would “reasonably indicate” that desire.
There are a number of reasons why the Legislature might decide to place control over confidentiality in the hands of the speaker rather than the listener or solicitor of the communication. One is the distinction *470between the privacy interests that are implicated by secondhand repetition of a communication as opposed to surreptitious recording or monitoring. See, e.g., Ribas v. Clark, 38 Cal.3d 355, 212 Cal.Rptr. 143, 146, 696 P.2d 637 (1985) (in bank) (Privacy Act creates distinction between the risk that private comments will be betrayed by the listener, and the infringement on privacy that attends their secret taping). As the Court of Appeal has explained:
In the former situation [i.e., secondhand repetition] the speaker retains control over the extent of his immediate audience. Even though that audience may republish his words, it will be done secondhand, after the fact, probably not in its entirety, and the impact will depend on the credibility of the teller. Where electronic monitoring is involved, however, the speaker is deprived of the right to control the extent of his own firsthand dissemination.... In this regard participant monitoring ... den[ies] the speaker a most important aspect of privacy of communication, the right to control the extent of first instance dissemination of his statements.
Warden, 160 Cal.Rptr. at 476 (cited with approval in Ribas, 212 Cal.Rptr. at 146, 696 P.2d 637).
The O’Laskey approach, as it is applied here, reduces this “important aspect of privacy of communication” to a nullity when one of the parties to a communication is a reporter. The result is a de facto rule that individuals who talk to reporters presumptively consent to the secret recording of those conversations.2 In some circumstances, such as the tabloid reporter example, this presumption is effectively irrebuttable. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile this result with the Legislature’s clearly expressed intent to “protect the right of privacy of the people of this state.” Cal.Penal Code § 630. See also Warden, 160 Cal.Rptr. at 474 (“The dominant objective of the [Privacy Act] ... is to protect the privacy of the people of this state.”) (internal quotation omitted). Creation of such a rule might be sound as a matter of public policy given that increased recording would presumably enhance the accuracy of information disseminated to the public. As the Supreme Court of California has remarked, however,
to the extent that the broad language and purposes of the Privacy Act may encompass conduct that some people believe should not he proscribed, their remedy is to ask the Legislature to draft a statute they find more palatable.
Ribas, 212 Cal.Rptr. at 147 n. 4, 696 P.2d 637.
For these reasons, I believe that if the Supreme Court of California were to interpret § 632(e) as exhaustively defining “confidential communication,” it would adopt an interpretation that has greater fidelity to the text of § 632(c) than the O’Laskey standard. In my view, the focus of our inquiry should be whether Deteresa had a reasonable expectation that Radziwill knew she did not want her statements divulged, not whether she had a reasonable expectation he would actually keep her confidence.
II.
Even if the O’Laskey standard were the proper approach to apply in this case, a genuine issue would remain for trial. The California courts agree that the issue of whether a communication is confidential is a question of fact that normally should be left to the fact finder. Warden, 160 Cal.Rptr. at 477-78. Because this issue was resolved on summary judgment, the issue of whether Deteresa has proven that she meets the O’Laskey standard is not before us. Instead, our task is to determine whether the facts, taken in the light most favorable to Deteresa, are sufficient to give rise to an inference that she had a reasonable expectation that Radziwill would not disseminate her statements.
Presumably, this inquiry must employ the familiar “totality of circumstances” approach found in other areas of the law that attempt to determine an individual’s reasonable ex*471pectations, cf. United States v. Nordling, 804 F.2d 1466, 1469 (9th Cir.1986). The majority’s analysis looks to the circumstances surrounding the Deteresa-Radziwill conversation but appears to give dispositive weight to the fact that Radziwill identified himself to Deteresa as an employee of ABC. While a plaintiff certainly has a more difficult case under O’Laskey when her confidant is a member of the news media, it is not impossible to prove a reasonable expectation of confidentiality in a conversation with a reporter.3 Certainly, news correspondents’ family members can have such an expectation as to intimate matters, and it is an accepted convention in the news media that the contents of a communication made “off the record” or on “deep background” cannot be divulged unless gained from another source. That said, the fact that Deteresa’s statements were not expressly conditioned on non-dissemination, and the fact that she assumed Radziwill was a reporter, work to her disadvantage.
The nature of the conversation obviously is also important. As the majority notes, Deteresa’s discussion of previously unknown information about one of the top news stories of the day certainly cuts against the reasonableness of an expectation those comments would not be divulged. There was more to the conversation than these statements, however. At the outset of the conversation, for example, Radziwill told Deteresa that he was approaching her to see if she would be willing to appear on his television program, not that he wanted interview her at that time. Deteresa refused this invitation and a conversation ensued that focused principally on whether Radziwill and ABC could overcome this refusal. Deteresa contends that she was lulled by Radziwill’s “casual demeanor” into believing that her subsequent comments about her flight were “off the record,” emphasizing that Radziwill did not attempt to interview her, was not attended by a visible camera crew or recording device, and that he did not take any notes of their conversation. Additionally, Deteresa points to the fact that their conversation included a discussion of the importance of individual privacy, including a general conversation relating to the invasions of privacy experienced by Radziwill’s famous relatives. While these factors do not amount to a compelling ease, the conversational context in which Deteresa made her comments to Radziwill, viewed in the light most favorable to her, supports the position that she reasonably expected those comments would not be disseminated.
The location of the conversation is also relevant. Here the conversation occurred on Deteresa’s doorstep after she was unexpectedly called to the door. There is certainly a distinction between the comments that one may make to a reporter in a public forum as opposed to those that are made on the threshold of one’s home. Moreover, the final clause of § 632(c) expressly recognizes that whether a statement is likely to be overheard is a relevant consideration in the determination of whether the statement is confidential. While the majority correctly concludes in Part III supra that Deteresa did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy as to her image because she could be readily seen from the street, the record does not support a conclusion that her comments could be overheard from a public place. Because of the greater expectation of privacy that inheres from the home, and the fact that the record does not establish that Deteresa’s comments could be heard from the street, this factor weighs in Deteresa’s favor.
Additionally, it is undisputed that Deteresa’s comments were secretly recorded from the very moment she opened her door. Thus, the privacy interest that California recognizes as inhering in the surreptitious recording of statements was infringed before Deteresa was given an opportunity to determine whether her comments were on the record. Unless § 632 countenances a presumption that all communications made from one’s doorstep to a media representative may be secretly recorded, Radziwill’s taping of Deteresa’s statements comments violated § 632 at least until the circumstances indicat*472ed she reasonably expected her comments would be reported.
Finally, the facts of O’Laskey do not compel the majority’s conclusion. In O’Laskey, a private investigator taped a telephone conversation with the plaintiff in which the investigator identified himself as a television show producer and told the plaintiff that he was eligible to win a $100,000 prize in a televised drawing if he answered certain questions. 273 Cal.Rptr. at 675. In response, the plaintiff “eagerly” answered the investigator’s questions. Id. 273 Cal.Rptr. at 678. In contrast, Deteresa refused to appear on Radziwill’s show and responded to his substantive questions after a general discussion of her concerns for her privacy. These distinctions are sufficient to allow for an inference that Deteresa reasonably expected her comments would not be disseminated.
In sum, though Deteresa’s case is not particularly strong, there is sufficient evidence in the record to permit a reasonable juror to infer from the circumstances of her conversation with Radziwill that she desired and reasonably expected her communications would not be disseminated.
III.
The purpose of California’s Privacy Act was to sharply restrict the legality of wiretapping, eavesdropping, and surreptitious recording, thereby remedying “a serious threat to the free exercise of personal liberties” and “protectfing] the right of privacy of the people of this state.” Cal.Penal Code § 630. The majority’s interpretation and application of § 632 frustrates that intent by allowing media representatives to approach persons at their homes, uninvited, and secretly record their statements without attempting to secure permission. Because I believe that a genuine issue remains for trial on the question of whether such conduct was permissible in this case, I respectfully dissent.

. At times, California’s courts have also described § 632(c) as "defining” the term "confidential communication,” though they have not explained their basis for this conclusion. See, e.g., O’Laskey v. Sortino, 224 Cal.App.3d 241, 273 Cal.Rptr. 674, 677 (1990). While it is possible that these courts and the majority rely on the well-known maxim "expressio /inclusio unius est exclusio alterius,” application of this narrowing interpretive device to § 632(c) is inappropriate given the broad statement of remedial intent that is expressed in the Privacy Act. See Cal.Penal *469Code § 630 (Privacy Act is intended to remedy "a serious threat to the free exercise of personal liberties" and "protect the right of privacy of the people of this state.”). See also People v. Reed, 13 Cal.4th 217, 52 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 112, 914 P.2d 184 (1996) (expressio unius maxim inapplicable where contrary to legislative intent).

. It may be that such a rule would be proper under § 632(c)'s. exclusion of "circumstance[s] in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be ... recorded.” Cal.Penal Code. § 632(c). This exclusion, however, does not appear to be the basis for the decisions of the majority or the district court.

. Although Radziwill was a producer, not a reporter, the record indicates Deteresa assumed he was a reporter.