# How to Write A True Story w/o Being Sued? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706 "2016-06-18T17:11:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/21 "2016-06-23T00:20:05Z")
> [@HelenGawn](#): > > You can’t be sued for printing facts, no matter what the source. > [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > You can be sued over anything. They probably won’t win. I am pretty sure that people have won [invasion of privacy](http://legaldictionary.net/invasion-of-privacy/) lawsuits. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/22 "2016-06-23T00:31:16Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I am pretty sure that people have won [invasion of privacy](http://legaldictionary.net/invasion-of-privacy/) lawsuits. Missed the edit window, but I found a more directly relevant link. This Writer’s Digest post about [defamation and invasion of privacy](http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/defamation-and-invasion), was written by a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and publishing law: > [@](#): > > Even if everything you write about someone is completely true, you still need to consider her privacy. Invasion of privacy occurs when you publicly disclose private facts _not related to public concern_. As with defamation, only living people can sue for invasion of privacy. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/23 "2016-06-23T00:33:36Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I am pretty sure that people have won [invasion of privacy](http://legaldictionary.net/invasion-of-privacy/) lawsuits. Maybe, but it’s extremely difficult under [current law](http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/defamation-and-invasion). > [@](#): > > Discussing a crime can be even trickier. The landmark case in which the court found that there was an invasion of privacy took place in 1971 in California. There, Marvin Briscoe sued Reader’s Digest for including him in a 1966 article about truck hijackings. The article failed to note that Briscoe’s crime had occurred 11 years earlier. > > The court, in ruling for Briscoe, said articles about past crimes deserve less First Amendment protection than stories about current events. The court concluded there was a strong public interest in protecting the identities of rehabilitated felons. > > In a more recent similar case, however, a man sued the Discovery Channel for a show recreating an event where he had been convicted of being an accessory to murder about 13 years earlier. The California justices hearing this case expressed sympathy for the man but observed that the U.S. Supreme Court had clarified the law to the benefit of the media since the Briscoe decision. > > The case the justices cited took place in 1975. A Georgia court clerk had permitted a reporter to see an indictment in a rape-murder case. Violating a state law, the reporter then broadcast the victim’s name. The victim’s father brought an invasion of privacy suit (on his own behalf, not his daughter’s), but the Supreme Court ruled that the media could not be liable for truthful publication of information obtained from public judicial records. > > If your memoir features another’s criminal escapades, the legal precedent isn’t clear-cut. On one hand, criminal acts are public records. On the other, if the deed was a number of years in the past, and the person has rehabilitated himself, you’ll want to consider whether the crime really needs to be discussed—and, if it does, whether there is a need to disclose the person’s identity. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/24 "2016-06-23T01:09:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Maybe, but it’s extremely difficult under [current law](http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/defamation-and-invasion). Those examples all involved information obtained from public records, though. IANAL and don’t know much about this subject beyond what’s covered in the two links I just posted, but I would guess that the courts would be more sympathetic to someone who’d had information that could not be obtained through public records or previous news stories published without their consent. I recently read _[Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven](https://www.amazon.com/Undress-Temple-Heaven-Susan-Gilman/dp/0446696935)_, a memoir by Susan Jane Gilman about a trip to China she made with a college friend, “Claire”, in the 1980s. The friend had some sort of psychiatric breakdown and Gilman had to get them both back to the US in a hurry. Gilman says that she never saw “Claire” again and was unable to contact her about this book, and that she changed the friend’s name and identifying details to protect her privacy. Gilman was able to track down several other tourists they met while in China and get them to approve the book, so between that and her own journal she had evidence that “Claire” behaved as described. But if Gilman had not disguised her friend’s identity, I suspect that “Claire” would have had good grounds for an invasion of privacy lawsuit. Provided “Claire” didn’t go on to become a public figure then it would probably be difficult to argue that the public needed to know the details of her past mental health problems, which included paranoid delusions about the CIA and Mossad and sexual behavior that many would consider inappropriate/embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/25 "2016-06-23T01:57:03Z")
Well, maybe. You can’t project law from what didn’t happen, though. Do you have any actual invasion of privacy lawsuits that are precedent? If not, very little can be said. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/26 "2016-06-23T03:53:12Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > What could you possibly say about anyone that would be worse than what is regularly said about Obama? How about some examples related to Obama? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/27 "2016-06-23T13:33:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Well, maybe. You can’t project law from what didn’t happen, though. Do you have any actual invasion of privacy lawsuits that are precedent? If not, very little can be said. Again, IANAL, and I have already posted two cites about invasion of privacy. That’s more than I’ve seen from the “you can’t be sued for printing facts” crowd, and it’s as much time as I’m willing to spend researching a topic of no special interest to me. If you are genuinely interested in learning more then I’m sure you’re as good at Googling as I am. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/28 "2016-06-23T16:48:54Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > How about some examples related to Obama? See Lamia’s last line. > [@Lamia](#): > > Again, IANAL, and I have already posted two cites about invasion of privacy. That’s more than I’ve seen from the “you can’t be sued for printing facts” crowd, and it’s as much time as I’m willing to spend researching a topic of no special interest to me. If you are genuinely interested in learning more then I’m sure you’re as good at Googling as I am. One cite was to a case of secretly filming private activities, hardly relevant to this thread. The other was a case in which no suit was even filed. IOW, you have yet to come up with an actual book-related lawsuit and are acting huffy because I’m calling you on it. Since my original answer to you was that a person might win an invasion of privacy suit but it would be hard, I’m struggling to figure out what you think you’re refuting in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/29 "2016-06-27T21:35:04Z")
It dawned on me I should be asking something tantamount to my OP. Having done my research on literary agents, everything is assumed to be patently classified as either fiction or non-fiction. All writers are pigeonholed by default. But, when you hear movies pitched as "the incredible saga based on true events or such…what is that? Why can’t one have a novel premised on a foundation of truths? How do you find a literary agent for that situation which falls outside the mold? It is neither a biography nor memoirs. So, how do I classify the platypus? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706/30 "2016-06-27T23:58:38Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > It dawned on me I should be asking something tantamount to my OP. Having done my research on literary agents, everything is assumed to be patently classified as either fiction or non-fiction. All writers are pigeonholed by default. But, when you hear movies pitched as "the incredible saga based on true events or such…what is that? Why can’t one have a novel premised on a foundation of truths? How do you find a literary agent for that situation which falls outside the mold? It is neither a biography nor memoirs. So, how do I classify the platypus? There are approximately one billion novels based on true events. They are still novels. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-true-story-w-o-being-sued/757706.md?page=1)