Nader v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 02 July 1968
• Citation: 57 Misc.2d 301,292 N.Y.S.2d 514
• Parties: Ralph NADER, Plaintiff, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Vincent Gillen Associates, Inc., Vincent Gillenand Fidelifacts, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

Page 514

292 N.Y.S.2d 514

57 Misc.2d 301

Ralph NADER, Plaintiff, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Vincent Gillen Associates, Inc. Vincent Gillenand Fidelifacts, Inc., Defendants.

Supreme Court, Special Term, New York County, Part I.

July 2, 1968.

Speiser, Shumate, Geoghan & Krause, New York City (Stuart M. Speiser, Paul D. Rheingold, Alfred W. Gans, New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff.

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York City (Martin Kleinbard, Allan A. Tuttle, New York City, of counsel), for defendant General Motors Corporation.

JOSEPH A. BRUST, Justice.

Defendant General Motors has moved to dismiss three of the four causes of action set forth in the complaint herein. In his first and second causes of action, plaintiff alleges that defendant General Motors invaded his right of privacy by investigating his private life and committing other offensive acts. For the purposes of this motion, it is conceded that General Motors, through its agents, made threatening telephone calls to plaintiff, tapped his telephone, attempted to entice him with women, 'shadowed' him in various places and caused him to be investigated by interviewing numerous of his acquaintances who could provide defendant with information about him. It is alleged that all of this was done to silence plaintiff as a critic of defendant General Motors and its products. It is also conceded that these acts were carried on in many states, including New York, and in the city of Washington, D.C. Plaintiff was then a resident of the District of Columbia. The same aforementioned conduct is alleged in both first and second causes of action, with the difference, that in the latter, the conduct complained about is alleged to have taken place in New York, whereas in the former it is alleged to have taken place in all of the other states. Apparently this distinction has been made by plaintiff in order to squarely raise the issue as to whether he has a valid cause of action, under New York law, as to those acts performed within New York. Plaintiff's third cause of action against alleges the same course of conduct as in the first and second cause, but this time he seeks to recover on the theory of intentional infliction upon him of mental suffering. Plaintiff's fourth and last cause of action is based upon a different set of facts and seeks recovery for tortious interference with plaintiff's prospective economic advantages, specifically alleging that defendant prevented the publication by plaintiff of articles critical of it and the automotive industry.

Defendant moves here to dismiss the first cause of action, or alternatively, to consolidate it with the third cause of action. At the threshold, a question arises as to which law this court is to apply to the facts alleged in the first cause of action. As noted, in the first cause of action, plaintiff claims that his right to privacy was violated by the defendant's acts in numerous states (expressly excluding New York) and that the law of each of the states wherein this conduct occurred should be applied to that particular conduct. In his papers, however, and in his oral argument, plaintiff appears to agree with defendant's contention that primarily the law of the District of Columbia should apply. Defendant so contends because this was the situs of plaintiff's residence, and therefore the chief place where the injuries to plaintiff's feelings through defendant's invasion of his right of privacy occurred. In part, the question of whether District of Columbia law alone applies, or the law of the various states mentioned, is to be individually applied, is not necessary for this court to determine, because the court finds that the law recognizes that the right of action which plaintiff states in his first cause of action exists in all of those jurisdictions.

As to plaintiff's first cause of action, defendant emphasizes that there is a distinction between invasion of privacy by publication--that is, making public facts about plaintiff's private life--and the intrusion into the privacy of plaintiff's life--a right to solitude or to be 'left alone' as it is commonly called. Defendant urges this distinction, contending that the District of Columbia does not recognize any right of privacy of the latter type. With this, the court disagrees. No District of Columbia case has been cited to this court by the defendant which holds that there is no recognized cause of action for invasion of the right of privacy, by so-called intrusion, as compared to acts amounting to publication. Indeed, several recent cases from the District of Columbia, cited by plaintiff, appear to make explicit reference to the right to be free from intrusion into one's life as a facet of the general right of privacy (See: Bernstein v. National Broadcasting...