Leopold v. Levin

• Decision Date: 27 May 1970
• Docket Number: No. 41498,41498
• Citation: 259 N.E.2d 250,45 Ill.2d 434
• Parties: Nathan F. LEOPOLD, Jr., Appellant, v. Meyer LEVIN et al., Appellees.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 250

259 N.E.2d 250

45 Ill.2d 434

Nathan F. LEOPOLD, Jr., Appellant, v. Meyer LEVIN et al., Appellees.

No. 41498.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

May 27, 1970.

Elmer Gertz, and Harold R. Gordon, Chicago, for appellant.

Robert W. Bergstrom, of Bergstrom, Rohde, Dehlgren & Olson, and Leon M. Despres, Chicago, for appellees.

WARD, Justice.

Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., the plaintiff, brought an action in the circuit court of Cook County, which was in the nature of a suit alleging a violation of the right of privacy. The defendants included: the author, publishers and several local distributors of a novel and a play, entitled 'Compulsion,' and the producer, distributor and Chicago area exhibitors of a related motion picture of the same name. The trial court granted the plaintiff's motion for a summary judgment on the question of liability and reserved the issue as to the amount of damages. The defendants appealed to this court but on the plaintiff's motion the appeal was dismissed on the ground that the judgment was interlocutory and, hence, unappealable. When remanded, the case was assigned to a different judge of the circuit court for pretrial consideration on the question of damages. The defendants as that point contested the judgment which had been entered by the predecessor judge. After extended proceedings the succeeding judge vacated the summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff and granted the motions of the defendants for summary judgment and judgment on the pleadings. A direct appeal has been taken by the plaintiff to this court as a constitutional question is involved.

In 1924, Richard Loeb, who is deceased, and Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., the plaintiff, pleaded guilty to the murder and kidnapping for ransom of a 14-year-old boy, Bobby Franks. Following a presentence proceeding, each was given consecutive prison sentences of life and 99 years. The luridness of the crime, the background of the defendants, their representation by the most prominent criminal advocate of the day, the 'trial,' and its denouement attracted international notoriety. Public interest in the crime and its principals did not wane with the passage of time and the case became an historical Cause cele bre.

The novel 'Compulsion' was first published in hardcover in October 1956. The author was the defendant Meyer Levin, who had been a fellow student of Loeb and Leopold and who had served as a reporter for a Chicago newspaper at the time of the crime. All concerned in this appeal agree that the basic framework of the novel, as well as of the subsequently produced movie, was factually provided by the kidnapping and murder of Bobby Franks, the events leading to the apprehension of Leopold and Loeb, and their prosecution. However, as the author himself, in the foreword of the book, wrote: 'Though the action is taken from reality, it must be recognized that thoughts and emotions described in the characters come from within the author, as he imagines them to belong to the personages in the case he has chosen.' And, 'I follow known events. Some scenes are, however, total interpolations, and some of my personages have no correspondence to persons in the case in question. This will be recognized as the method of the historical novel. I suppose Compulsion may be called a contemporary historical novel or a documentary novel, as distinguished from a Roman a clef. (That is, a novel drawing upon actual occurrences or real persons under the guise of fiction.')

Neither the name of Loeb or Leopold appear in the foreword, and fictitious names are used in the novel itself for all persons who may have been involved in the case. However, the names of Loeb and the plaintiff were used in advertising the novel. Illustrative of this, on the paper jacket to the hardcover edition it was said: 'This book is a novel suggested by what is possibly the most famous and certainly one of the most shocking crimes ever committed in America--the Leopold-Loeb murder case.' On the page preceding the title page of the paperback edition of 'Compulsion', which was first published in 1958, the following appeared: 'In his novel based upon the Leopold-Loeb case, Meyer Levin seeks to discover the psychological motivation behind this monstrous deed.' The back cover of the paperback noted that "Compulsion' is a spellbinding fictionalized account of one of the most famous and shocking crimes of our age--the Leopold-Loeb murder case.'

The case had been of interest to other authors. For example, in 1957, a novel, 'Nothing But The Night,' by James Yaffe was published. It bore a fictionalized resemblance to the Leopold-Loeb case, but had a different locale and no reference was apparently made in the advertising of it to the actual case. In the same year a factual account of the life and crimes of Leopold and Loeb by Maureen McKernan, entitled, 'The Amazing Crime and Trial of Leopold and Loeb' was published and widely advertised. In 1957, too, an account of the kidnapping, murder and prosecution written by the plaintiff for compensation appeared in serialized form for several weeks in a Chicago newspaper. Story captions included: 'Leopold Tells Own Story--How It Felt To Be A Killer' 'Leopold Arrested; Time For Him To Use Alibi'; 'Darrow Makes Masterful Plea For Understanding.' He was granted parole in 1958 and that year his autobiographical story, 'Life Plus 99 Years,' which included a description of his detection and prosecution and their personal consequences, was published. It was given extensive publicity.

The motion picture 'Compulsion' was released in April, 1959. Several major characters in the film, including the one corresponding to the appellant, were styled to resemble actual persons in the case. Fictitious names were used, though, and no photographs of the appellant or any other person connected with the case appeared in the movie or in any material used to promote the film. The promotional material did refer to the crime. In a brochure prepared for movie exhibitors, entitled 'Vital Statistics,' 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, a defendant, outlined the likenesses and differences between the movie and the actual events, and declared: 'It should be made clear emphatically that 'Compulsion' is not an effort to reproduce the crime of Leopold and Loeb, nor their trial. The screenplay was taken from a recognized work of fiction 'suggested' by the Leopold-Loeb case, but neither the author of the book nor the producer of the film has attempted anything but to tell a dramatic story. * * * The picture is in no way a documentary and its makers have attempted only to translate the book into terms of good dramaturgy.' One motion picture exhibitor, the Woods Theatre in Chicago, owned by a defendant here, in advertising the movie used a photographic enlargment of the back cover of the paperback book edition of 'Compulsion' in which the plaintiff's name was used, as has been described. It displayed also a blow-up or enlargement of portions of reviews given the movie in which the plaintiff's name had been mentioned. His name also was introduced during personal, radio and television interviews in various cities by certain of the defendants in the course of their promotion of the motion picture.

The plaintiff acknowledges that a documentary account of the Leopold-Loeb case would be a constitutionally protected expression, since the subject events are matters of public record. Also constitutionally protected, the plaintiff continues, would be a completely fictional work inspired by the case if matters such as the locale would be changed and if there would be no promotional identification with the plaintiff. Leopold's claim is that the constitutional assurances of free speech and press do not permit an invasion of his privacy through the exploitation of his name, likeness and personality for commercial gain in 'knowingly fictionalized accounts' of his private life and through the appropriation of his name and likeness in the advertising materials. Denying him redress would deprive him, he argues, of his right to pursue and obtain happiness guaranteed by section 1 of article II of the constitution of Illinois, S.H.A.

While the question of a right of privacy has not until now been considered by this court, such a right has been recognized in other courts of this State. It was first acknowledged at the appellate level in the case of Eick v. Perk Dog Food Co. (1952), 347 Ill.App. 293, 106 N.E.2d 742, and there has been implicit recognition of it by the legislature through its enactment of a statute of limitations for suits complaining of violations of privacy. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1967, ch. 83, par. 14; see Laws of 1959, p. 1770.) A right of privacy has been recognized in more than 30 States in addition to the District of Columbia. See Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 383, n. 7, 413, 87 S.Ct. 534, 17 L.Ed.2d 456, 464 n. 7, 481; Prosser, Law of Torts, 3rd ed. (1964), sec. 112 at 831--832.

The dimensions of the right in Illinois have thus far been conservatively interpreted under the appellate courts' decisions. In Eick, where the interest in privacy was first admitted, a blind girl's photograph was used without her consent in promoting the sale of dog food. The court held that the allegation of these facts stated a good cause of action for violation of the right of privacy. The court observed, though, that the right of privacy is a limited one in areas of legitimate public interest as where there is a legitimate news interest in one's photograph or likeness as a public figure. (347 Ill.App. at 299, 106 N.E.2d 742; but cf. Annerino v. Dell Publishing Co., 17 Ill.App.2d 205, 149 N.E.2d 761.) Later, in Bradley v. Cowles Magazines Inc. (1960), 26 Ill.App.2d 331, 168 N.E.2d 64, a case holding that a mother had no cognizable claim that her right of privacy had been violated by the publisher of Look magazine when it publicized the murder of her son, the court stated that Eick, itself, was limited...