Steinback v. dePasse
| Decision Date | 08 August 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-1260,00-1260 |
| Citation | 267 F.3d 457 |
| Parties | (6th Cir. 2001) Cheryl Ruffin-Steinback, Individually and in her capacity as Personal Representative of the Estate of Davis E. Ruffin, p/k/a David Ruffin; Nedra Ruffin; Kimberly Bogan; David Ruffin, Jr.; Estate of Earline Ruffin; Josephine Miles; Rose Franklin, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Suzanne dePasse; dePasse Entertainment; Otis Williams, "Temptations"; Shelly Burger; National Broadcasting Company, Inc.; David Picker; Hallmark Entertainment, Individuals and corporations, jointly and severally, Defendants-Appellees. Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit. Nos. 99-70513; 99-70514; 99-70515; 99-71088; John Feikens, District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Gregory J. Reed, GREGORY J. REED & ASSOCIATES, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellants.
Herschel P. Fink, HONIGMAN, MILLER, SCHWARTZ & COHN, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellees.
Gregory M. Kopacz, DYKEMA GOSSETT, PLLC, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for Appellees.
Before: SUHRHEINRICH and SILER, Circuit Judges; HOOD, District Judge.*
Plaintiffs appeal the district court's dismissal of their claims in this tort action based on the airing of a mini-series about the Temptations. For the reasons which follow, we AFFIRM.
In November of 1998, National Broadcasting Company ("NBC") aired a four-hour mini-series depicting the Temptations as recounted in a novel written by Otis Williams, a founding member of the legendary recording group. Plaintiffs in this action include Cheryl Ruffin-Steinback, individually and as representative of the estate of Davis E. Ruffin, lead singer of the group from 1964 to 1968 who was known professionally as David Ruffin; Nedra Ruffin, Kimberly Bogan, and David Ruffin, Jr., the children of Davis Ruffin; Earline Ruffin, the mother of Davis Ruffin; Rose Franklin, the mother of Melvin Franklin, a member of the group; Josephine Miles, the first wife of Otis Williams; and Johnnie Mae Mathews, the first agent of the Temptations.1
Plaintiffs have appealed only their state law tort claims for violation of the right of publicity, unjust enrichment, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Defendants dePasse Entertainment, NBC, David Picker, and Hallmark Entertainment, Inc. Defendants Suzanne dePasse, Otis Williams, Shelly Berger, and Characters Unlimited were never served with the complaint and have been dismissed from this case.
(1) Whether the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' claims for violation of their rights of publicity or commercial appropriation as a matter of law.
(2) Whether the district court properly found plaintiffs' claims of unjust enrichment insufficient as a matter of law.
(3) Whether the district court properly found Earline Ruffin's claim of defamation failed to survive her death as a matter of law.
(4) Whether the district court properly found the Ruffin plaintiffs' claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress were insufficient as a matter of law.
The mini-series at issue in this case relates the story of the Temptations from the group's beginning until the present and is based on a novel written by Otis Williams. It details portions of the lives of its members, their families, and those having business relationships with the Temptations. Only Williams was compensated for the mini-series, and the plaintiffs allege that any use of their likenesses through actor portrayals was without their permission. The airing was so successful that video cassettes of the mini-series were available for purchase or rental.
Plaintiffs filed three complaints in Michigan state court, and the action was removed by defendants to federal court.2 The Ruffins' complaint objected to the depiction of David Ruffin's final moments in the mini-series in which his beaten body was thrown from a moving car in front of a hospital where he dies. According to the mini-series, his body remained unclaimed in a morgue for a week after his death. Plaintiffs state that he was taken to the hospital by a limousine and was escorted to the waiting area by his driver who informed the attendants of his identity. The Ruffin children further state that his body was claimed by one of them within a few days after his death. The children also object to the portrayal of David Ruffin in the mini-series as single and childless while all the other members of the Temptations were shown with wives and children. Earline Ruffin alleges she was falsely portrayed as a prostitute because David Ruffin's character indicated that he was given to a pimp by his mother to settle a debt.3
Rose Franklin disputes the manner in which the mini-series depicted the final days of her son, Melvin. She states that rather than being confined to a wheelchair and dying in her home, her son died in his sleep at his home in California.
Josephine Miles disagrees with the way the mini-series portrayed her ex-husband Otis Williams as a better father and husband than he was. She feels this gives her less credit for the raising of their son. She also objects to the implication that she was involved with another man during her marriage to Williams.
Defendants filed motions to dismiss the complaints pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) which were followed by several hearings wherein the parties submitted documentary evidence in support of their positions. The district court considered this evidentiary material in ruling on some of plaintiffs claims, resulting in dismissal of their claims under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c), the summary judgment standard.
This court reviews de novo a district court's dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). See Varljen v. Cleveland Gear Co., Inc., 250 F.3d 426, 429 (6th Cir. 2001). The court must "consider as true the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint and construe[] them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff[s]." Id.
A grant of summary judgment by the district court is also reviewed de novo, Brody v. City of Mason, 250 F.3d 432, 436-37 (6th Cir. 2001), with all evidence viewed "in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment[,]"White's Landing Fisheries, Inc. v. Buchholzer, 29 F.3d 229, 231 (6th Cir. 1994). Summary judgment is appropriate only where there are "no issues of material fact present and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id. at 231.
Because this is a diversity action removed from Michigan state court, the district court applied Michigan law to all of plaintiffs' claims except for the defamation claim asserted by Earline Ruffin.
The right of publicity is defined as "an appropriation of one's name or likeness for the defendant's advantage." Carson v. Here's Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc., 698 F.2d 831, 834 (6th Cir. 1983). The purpose of this right is "to protect the commercial interest of celebrities in their identities[,]", id. at 835, as "[t]he famous have an exclusive legal right during life to control and profit from the commercial use of their name and personality[,]" id. (quoting Memphis Dev. Found. v. Factors Etc., Inc., 616 F.2d 956, 957 (6th Cir. 1980)).
The district court rejected plaintiffs' claims of violation of their rights of publicity on the basis that depicting one's life-story without his or her permission did not constitute a violation of the right of publicity under Michigan law. See J.A. 141, district court's opinion and order of February 3, 2000, p. 11. At the time of this ruling, the Michigan Supreme Court had not addressed this tort, and the lower Michigan courts had only noted that it was among the types of "invasion of privacy" rights recognized under Michigan law. In drawing this conclusion, the district court relied in part on the Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition which noted in §47 that use of identity "for the purposes of trade does not ordinarily include the use of a person's identity in news reporting, commentary, entertainment, works of fiction or nonfiction, or in advertising that is incidental to such uses."
The district court also focused on Matthews v. Wozencraft, 15 F.3d 432 (5th Cir. 1994), in which an ex-husband alleged misappropriation of his name and likeness by his ex-wife and a movie studio when events of his life as a police officer, some of which were fictionalized, were sold as movie rights. His claim for violation of his right of publicity was denied by the Fifth Circuit which held that the term Id. at 438. A similar claim brought by a former Black Panther against the producers of a film depicting a fictionalized account of his life story was rejected in Seale v. Gramercy Pictures, 949 F.Supp. 331 (E.D. Pa. 1996).
Plaintiffs argue that the district court misinterprets their position and has reduced their claims to the narrow notion that the defendants only depicted their life stories without their consent. They allege that their life stories were not told in the mini-series, but instead their identities were used as colorful props to make Otis Williams's life story more entertaining and appealing. Plaintiffs state that this court's holding in Carson v. Here's Johnny Portable Toilets, Inc. provides them with relief, and that the district court erred by dismissing their claims for failure to state a cause of action.
Defendants assert that the First Amendment defeats plaintiffs' right of publicity claims because the mini-series is a movie concerning a musical group where there is public...
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