Charmaine West v. Media General Convergence, Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 August 2001
• Docket Number: 01-00141
• Citation: 53 S.W.3d 640
• Parties: CHARMAINE WEST, et al. v. MEDIA GENERAL CONVERGENCE, INC, et al.IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

CHARMAINE WEST, et al. v MEDIA GENERAL CONVERGENCE, INC, et al.

No. M2001-00141-SC-R23-CQ

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE

June 13, 2001 Session

Filed August 23, 2001

Rule 23 Certified Question of Law United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, No. 1:00-cv-184, R. Allan Edgar, Chief United States District Judge

Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Tennessee,¹ this Court accepted certification of the following question from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee:

Do the courts of Tennessee recognize the tort of false light invasion of privacy, and if so, what are the parameters and elements of that tort?

We conclude that Tennessee recognizes the tort of false light invasion of privacy and that Section 652E of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977), as modified by our discussion below, is an accurate statement of the elements of this tort in Tennessee. We further conclude that the parameters of the doctrine are illustrated by the Comments to Sections 652A and 652E-I, and by this Court's decision in Memphis Publishing Co. v. Nichols, 569 S.W.2d 412 (Tenn. 1978), as it applies to the First Amendment standard for private plaintiffs and the pleading of damages.

Tennessee. Sup. Ct. R. 23 Certified Question of Law

Frank F. Drowota, III, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which E. Riley Anderson, C.J., Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., Janice M. Holder, and William M. Barker, JJ., joined.

Samuel L. Felker, Donald L. Zachary, and Rebecca S. Kell, Nashville, Tennessee, for the petitioner, Media General Convergence, Inc. and Media General Convergence, Inc. d/b/a WDEF-TV 12.

Anita B. Hardeman and Harry F. Burnette, Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the respondents Charmaine West and First Alternative Probation and Counseling, Inc.

OPINION

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The facts from which this case arose were adequately provided in the Certification Order to this Court. As described in that Order, the relevant facts are as follows:

This suit arises out of a multi-part investigative news report aired by WDEF-TV 12 in Chattanooga about the relationship between the plaintiffs [Charmaine West and First Alternative Probation Counseling, Inc.] and the Hamilton County General Sessions Court, and in particular, one of the general sessions court judges. Plaintiffs operated a private probation services business, and were referred this business by the general sessions courts. Plaintiffs claim that WDEF-TV defamed them by broadcasting false statements that the plaintiffs' business is illegal. Plaintiff West, in particular, claims that the defendant invaded her privacy by implying that she had a sexual relationship with one of the general session judges; and that the general sessions judges and the plaintiffs otherwise had a "cozy," and hence improper, relationship.

Media General filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' false light invasion of privacy claim. Thereafter, the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee certified to this Court the following question of law: Do the courts of Tennessee recognize the tort of false light invasion of privacy, and if so, what are the parameters and elements of that tort? We accepted certification of this question, and, for the reasons stated below, we conclude that the tort of false light is recognized under Tennessee law. The elements of this tort are adequately stated in Section 652E of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977), as modified below, while Sections 652F-I and the comments to Sections 652A and 652E-I accurately reflect the parameters of the tort in Tennessee.

II. Analysis

A. The Right to Privacy

In the seminal article, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193 (1891), Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, expressing disdain for the "gossip-mongers" of their time, established the concept of the right to privacy in the common law. The article expressed contempt for the manner in which technological advancement undermined one's ability to keep private matters from the public eye:

The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury.

Warren & Brandeis, The Right to Privacy at 196. Setting out to "define anew . . . the right to enjoy life, the right to be let alone," Warren and Brandeis positioned the right to privacy apart from traditional tort recovery requirements of physical injury or infringement upon property interests. 4 Harv. L. Rev. at 193.²

The protection of privacy rights are still reflected in current law, owing much to the efforts of Dean William L. Prosser, whose analysis of invasion of privacy resulted in the classification of that tort into four separate causes of action. See William L. Prosser, Privacy, 48 Calif. L. Rev. 383 (1960); William L. Prosser, Law of Torts § 117 (4th ed.1971). "To date the law of privacy comprises four distinct interests of the plaintiff, which are tied together by the common name, but otherwise have almost nothing in common except that each represents an interference with the right of the plaintiff 'to be let alone.'" Prosser, Law of Torts § 117, at 804. Prosser's four categories consist of the appropriation of one's name or likeness, intrusion upon the seclusion of another, public disclosure of private facts, and placing another in a false light before the public. Id., § 117.

Section 652A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977) incorporated Dean Prosser's four categories of invasion of privacy:

(1) One who invades the right of privacy of another is subject to liability for the resulting harm to the interests of the other.

(2) The right of privacy is invaded by:

(a) unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another, as stated in § 652B; or

(b) appropriation of the other's name or likeness, as stated in § 652C; or

(c) unreasonable publicity given to the other's private life, as stated in § 652D; or

(d) publicity that unreasonably places the other in a false light before the public, as stated in § 652E.

This Court first encountered the issue of invasion of privacy in Langford v. Vanderbilt University, 287 S.W.2d 32 (Tenn. 1956). Assuming that invasion of privacy existed as a cause of action in Tennessee, this Court recognized the right to privacy as "the right to be let alone; the right of a person to be free from unwarranted publicity." Langford, 287 S.W.2d at 38.³ In Martin v. Senators, Inc., 418 S.W.2d 660 (Tenn. 1967), we revisited the issue of invasion of privacy, looking to the Restatement (First) of Torts (1939) for insight into the nature of the tort:

A person who unreasonably and seriously interferes with another's interest in not having his affairs known to others or his likeness exhibited to the public is liable to the other. . . . Liability exists only if the defendant's conduct was such that he should have realized that it would be offensive to persons of ordinary sensibilities. It is only where the intrusion has gone beyond the limits of decency that liability accrues.

Martin, 418 S.W.2d at 663 (citing to Restatement (First) of Torts §867 & cmt. d (1939)). In more recent years, the federal courts have applied the Restatement (Second) of Torts when analyzing the right to privacy in Tennessee. In Scarbrough v. Brown Group, Inc., the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee held that "[a]lthough no Tennessee state court has recognized the [Restatement (Second)] distinctions, federal courts applying Tennessee law have used these categories in analyzing invasion of privacy claims." 935 F. Supp. 954, 963-64 (W.D. Tenn. 1996).⁴

B. False Light and Recognition of the Tort

Specifically at issue in this case is whether Tennessee recognizes the separate tort of false light invasion of privacy. Section 652E of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977) defines the tort of false light:

One who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if

(a) the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and

(b) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.

A majority of jurisdictions addressing false light claims have chosen to recognize false light as a separate actionable tort. Most of these jurisdictions have adopted either the analysis of the tort given by Dean Prosser or the definition provided by the Restatement (Second) of Torts. See White v. Fraternal Order of Police, 909 F.2d 512 (D.C. Cir. 1990); Phillips v. Smalley Maint. Servs., Inc., 435 So. 2d 705 (Ala. 1983); Godbehere v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 783 P.2d 781 (Ariz. 1989); Dodrill v. Arkansas Democrat Co., 590 S.W.2d 840 (Ark. 1979); Fellows v. National Enquirer, Inc., 721 P.2d 97 (Cal. 1986)(in bank); Cabaniss v. Hipsley, 151 S.E.2d 496 (Ga. Ct. App. 1966); Goodrich v. Waterbury Republican-American, Inc., 448 A.2d 1317 (Conn. 1982); Agency for Health Care Admn. v. Associated Indus. of Florida, Inc., 678 So. 2d 1239 (Fla. 1996)(recognizing four separate categories constituting invasion of privacy); Hoskins v. Howard, 971 P.2d 1135 (Idaho 1998); Lovgren v. Citizens First Nat'l Bank of Princeton, 534 N.E.2d 987 (Ill. 1989); Cullison v. Medley, 570 N.E.2d 27 (Ind. 1991); Anderson v. Low Rent Housing Comm'n of Muscatine, 304 N.W.2d 239 (Iowa 1981); Finlay v. Finlay, 856 P.2d 183 (Kan. Ct. App. 1993)(stating that false light is a...