I’ve been thinking about that a lot, actually. I think the first scenario is fair game. An actor acts, and there’s no particular woman whose privacy is being invaded.
The second one (with the addition of a girlfriend)…not so much. Pre-internet, I’d say it’s acceptable if the billboards/magazines are not in the same physical vicinity or community where the girlfriend lives, since it can’t hurt her. Now that the world is so very small, though…I think the first thing that would happen would be news of it getting back to her/her community, and now we’re back at the invasion of privacy issue.
Does anyone know where the billboard in the OP is located? Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any articles about this story. It makes me think even worse of the ex-boyfriend if he put it on a billboard that’s near her workplace, or her church, along her regular commute, or right near her house.
Mainly, this stunt of the ex-boyfriend just makes me think she dodged a huuuuge bullet when they broke up. Can you imagine what a long-term relationship with this asswipe would be like?
How can Martha be invading the girlfriend’s privacy if Martha doesn’t even know there’s a girlfriend or that she had an abortion?
Honestly if it wasn’t for the lawsuit involved and I saw that billboard I’d assume it was an actor.
(Please to be aware I’m making this up as I go along, and I’m not nearly so sure of my answers as it sounds…)
I think so, yes. A movie contains a lot of fiction that is very obvious fiction. Character names, stories, etc., that make it very clear that the story isn’t about the actor’s RL girlfriend, so I can’t see how her privacy would be an issue.
An magazine ad or billboard is…less obviously fictional, especially these kinds, so obviously put together by a person with a personal agenda. I don’t think anyone could look at the billboard in the OP and not think that that guy was “speaking” as himself, about his real life girlfriend and her real life abortion(?). ETA: Oh, well I guess **jonesj2205 **could.
I think that a movie, with that wonderful get-your-ass-out-of-a-sling disclaimer about how the characters and events are fictional and not based on any real person, neatly avoids this problem.
This is where he loses me. I was perfectly fine with him being a jackass who put up an anonymous billboard but finding a way to sneak her name onto the billboard is an absolute violation of her privacy AFAIC.
How about we forget the ad campaign. Let’s imagine Tony and Tia, who break up after Tia aborts her pregnancy against Tony’s wishes.
Tony writes on his Facebook page, changing his status to “Single,” with a short post that says, “Just broke up with my GF. She aborted our baby. Heartbroken.”
“Actionable” is such a lawyery word for a non-lawyer like me to tackle! It’s douchey, absolutely. Whether or not it’s actionable probably depends on whether the court recognizes Facebook as “public” or not. I don’t know.
Yes, each of these hypotheticals is going to turn on resolution of every single element of the invasion of privacy claim – whether the private facts have been “publicized,” what the relevant “public” is, whether that public will recognize the identity of the plaintiff from the disclosure, etc.
I don’t think that talking about these things in the abstract is going to help us resolve anything.
“Actionable,” just means, “Can she win a lawsuit for any of the reasons we’ve discussed here – libel, or publication of private facts?”
And I doubt that Facebook is definitively public, but then – is the answer dependant on the number of friends that follow his Facebook page? What if those friends are mostly RL friends of the couple? Does the “special rule” of Michigan apply?
Let’s say Tony has 65 friends on his page, and 40 of them have also friended Tia, and 25 know the couple in real life.
Can Tia sue Tony, and win, for publication of private facts?
I think people will react more negatively to the billboard than the Facebook scenario, despite the fact that the Facebook scenario may more reliably reveal the story to more people that know the woman. Answering this question will help us suss out what elements of the tort we’re willing to see enforced.
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought it was usual for attorneys to argue early in a case that the given case is just like (or not like depending the side you are on) a previously decided case. If the court agrees it is substantially similar to an already decided case and there is nothing new in the current case then the need not do a whole trial.
Since no one here has been able to cite actual cases that largely conform to the facts in this case it will almost certainly need a full trial for a court to decide (barring an agreement prior to trial).
In the case of the woman running an anti-abortion ad campaign I think she is not in trouble. Just as movies usually say at the end that all the characters and events portrayed are fictional, any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental I think the same could be done for her. If she can show it is a national campaign with ads being bought all over and merely called a modeling agency to send a model over for some pictures I’d say she is in the clear (even if the model, unbeknown to her, actually had a GF who aborted and was named in the billboard).
In this case the facts are very different. The “model” is the father in question. The billboard was (presumably) bought in or near her hometown. The guy named his ex-GF albeit he tried to obfuscate that it was her name (but barely and only to hopefully skirt liability). The inescapable message is he was trying to embarrass his ex-GF.
The facts in the two cases are different and would need to be decided differently.
As for Facebook the courts have been struggling for a long time to come up with a coherent set of rules for how this all works. Is a billboard more “public” than Facebook? Interesting question.
I think he means summary judgment maybe? Of course, to win on SJ you must show two things: (1) no genuine issue of material fact and (2) the moving party is entitled, on those not-genuinely-disputed facts, to a favorable judgment (on the underlying claim) as a matter of law.
So, yes, if the parties agree as to what actually happened in the flesh-and-blood, brick-and-mortar, outside-the-courtroom real world (which they very well might do in this case), then yes, the case can be disposed of on summary judgment. I don’t even think the law would necessarily need to be particularly well-settled. After all, there is no need for a trial if the court is just going to decide on the basis of memoranda of law. But I think most courts would err on the side of caution and not dispose of the matter at the SJ stage if the case did pose a novel legal question.
