Hendry v. Conner, 44777
Citation | 303 Minn. 317,226 N.W.2d 921 |
Decision Date | 14 March 1975 |
Docket Number | No. 44777,44777 |
Parties | Judy HENDRY, Appellant, v. William CONNER, Respondent. |
Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Connolly & Heffernan and Donald J. Heffernan, St. Paul, for appellant.
Jardine, Logan & O'Brien and Gerald M. Linnihan, St. Paul, for respondent.
Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.
Plaintiff brought this action alleging an invasion of privacy by defendant. As disclosed in her complaint and the answers to interrogatories, plaintiff alleges she took her minor child to St. Paul Ramsey Hospital for treatment. While waiting in the hospital to have her child admitted, she was told by defendant, an employee of the credit department of the hospital, that the child could not be admitted unless an outstanding bill for prior treatment was paid. Reference was further made to the fact that the debt had been included by plaintiff in a petition for bankruptcy which she had filed. The statement was alleged to have been made in a loud voice in the presence of a number of people waiting in the room. Plaintiff had, in fact, owed the hospital $1,500, and the debt had been discharged in bankruptcy.
The trial court dismissed plaintiff's action on the ground that she had failed to state a cause of action for relief, and this appeal is from the judgment for defendant. We affirm.
Prosser, Torts (4 ed.) pp. 802 to 818, states in an analysis of the subject that there are four separate kinds of invasion of privacy. The kinds included by Prosser are (1) appropriation for the defendant's benefit or advantages of the plaintiff's name or likeness; (2) intrusion upon the plaintiff's physical solitude or seclusion; (3) publicity which places the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye; and (4) public disclosure of private facts.
Plaintiff's claim falls into the category of public disclosure of private facts, sometimes referred to as a disclosure of indebtedness. See, Annotation, 33 A.L.R.3d 154. The essentials of this offense are summarized as follows in the annotation (33 A.L.R.3d 157):
Minnesota has never recognized, either by legislative or court action, a cause of action for invasion of privacy, even though many other states have done so. Prosser, Torts (4 ed.) pp. 802 to 812; Annotation, 33 A.L.R.3d 154. It is not necessary for the disposition of this case to decide whether a cause of action for invasion...
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Bystrom By and Through Bystrom v. Fridley High School, Independent School Dist. No. 14
...795 F.2d at 1375-76. 1 Because invasion of privacy has not been recognized as an actionable tort in Minnesota, Hendry v. Conner, 303 Minn. 317, 319, 226 N.W.2d 921, 923 (1975); House v. Sports Films & Talents, Inc., 351 N.W.2d 684, 685 (Minn.Ct.App.1984), 2 the main opinion holds that guide......
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Parents v. Green, A11–0402.
...chance in Fabio is dicta at best and is akin to the history of our treatment of the tort of invasion of privacy. More specifically, in Hendry v. Conner, we acknowledged that Minnesota had never recognized the tort of invasion of privacy, but noted that even if the court were to do so, the d......
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Price v. Viking Press, Inc.
...a cause of action for invasion of privacy in general or for invasion by false light in particular. See Hendry v. Conner, 303 Minn. 317, 319, 226 N.W.2d 921, 923 (1975); House v. Sports Films, 351 N.W.2d 684, 685 (Minn. App.1984). It is not for a federal court to recognize it in the first in......
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Ruzicka v. Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
...v. North Memorial Medical Center, 448 N.W.2d 78, 80-81 (Minn.Ct.App.1989), pet. for review denied, Jan. 12, 1990; Hendry v. Conner, 303 Minn. 317, 226 N.W.2d 921, 923 (1975). Summary judgment will therefore be granted on these claims as Accordingly, based on the foregoing, and upon all the ......