Court Opinion

ID: 9658866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:19:20.579933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:00.901037
License: Public Domain

T. G. Kavanagh, P. J.
{dissenting). The plaintiff asserted that when she was in defendant’s store, on business, defendant’s manager charged from his office and in a loud and abusive manner charged her with failing to pay for her layaway purchase.
This, claims plaintiff, was an actionable invasion of her privacy, on the theory that true or false, it was a private matter that defendant could not publicize with impunity.
.The trial judge granted defendant’s motion to strike this count for failure to state a cause of action and this appeal tests the propriety of his ruling.
*427I think the court erred.
I do not think it can be said that all reasonable men would agree that the details of such relationship are not private matters, or that the announcement of them in a loud voice in the store was not a publication of them or that this was not an unreasonable and serious interference with plaintiff’s privacy. For this reason we cannot say as a matter of law that no cause of action was pleaded.
I would hold that the jury should have been permitted to determine whether the asserted invasion of plaintiff’s privacy was an unreasonable and serious interference with her right to have her private affairs kept from the public.
I would reverse with costs to appellant.