ANSWERS TO PROBLEM CASES:
1. Yes, Garley had the necessary intent for battery liability. The defendant either must desire to bring about certain results of his action or recognize that such results are substantially certain to occur. England's failure to suffer physical harm does not doom her claim to defeat, because battery liability requires only that the contact be harmful or offensive. England v. S&M Foods, Inc., 511 So. 2d 1313 (La. Ct. App. 1987).
2. Yes. The Supreme Court of New York for Madison County found that Clarke’s testimony failed to demonstrate the existence of triable facts. That Goff’s participation in the wrestling match as a whole may have been consensual is irrelevant; he did not consent to the arm-twisting that broke his wrist. Goff v. Clarke, 2000 NY Slip Op 50020U (2002).
3. No. The statements made about the defendants were in the context of an obvious attempt at humor or satire. No reasonable reader would interpret the story as stating actual facts about the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs thus could not establish one of the critical common law elements of a defamation claim. Alternatively, even if they could establish the existence of a false statement of supposed fact, the plaintiffs would not be able to prove actual malice (which, as public officials or public figures, they would be expected to prove). The defendants were therefore entitled to summary judgment. New Times, Inc. v. Isaacks, 146 S.W.3d 144 (Tex. Sup. Ct. 2004).
4. No, said the Alabama Supreme Court, which overturned a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs. An Alabama statute of the sort described in the text gave stores and their employees a conditional privilege to detain suspected shoplifters, so long as the suspicion was reasonably based and the detention was reasonably conducted. The evidence clearly established that K-Mart and its employee, Sharp, had a reasonable basis for suspecting Perdue and Cameron of shoplifting. Sharp’s detention of them was reasonable in all respects. Therefore, K-Mart and Sharp could not be held liable for false imprisonment. K-Mart Corp. v. Perdue, 708 So.2d 106 (Ala. Sup. Ct. 1997).
5. Yes. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that the trial judge erred in setting aside a jury verdict in favor Homan and in granting the defendant’s (Goyal’s) motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. There was sufficient evidence to supporting the necessary elements of outrageousness, intent (or at least recklessness), and severe emotional distress. For the court, it was quite important that DaSilva had repeatedly threatened and otherwise hounded Goyal because Goyal therefore would have been substantially certain that DaSilva would act the same way regarding Homan. The court thus viewed Goyal’s actions as at least reckless, given Goyal’s obvious reasons to know what DaSilva was likely to do. Reckless infliction of distress is seen by many courts, this one included, as the legal equivalent of intentional infliction. Homan v. Goyal, 711 A.2d 812 (D.C. App. 1998).
6. Although the point is not certain, White's distress looks sufficiently severe, even in a state that requires physical symptoms. However, the court in White v. Monsanto Co., 585 So. 2d 1205 (La. Sup. Ct. 1991) concluded that McDermott's behavior was insufficiently outrageous for liability. What about the courts' tendency to lower the bar where the plaintiff is emotionally susceptible and the defendant knows this? (The court did not regard White as particularly susceptible to emotional distress.) What about the same tendency where the defendant or its agent occupies a position of authority over the plaintiff? (The court mentioned this consideration but evidently did not think that it carried sufficient weight on these facts.)
7. No. The statements represented Schlictmann’s thought processes. According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, no reasonable reader would take the comments as objective statements of supposed fact. Even if statements such as these may be demonstrably false, that does not mean Harr could be held liable for them. The court noted that “the law does not force writers to clumsily begin every sentence with ‘Schlictmann felt’ in order to indicate that a statement is being attributed to Schlictmann.” Nor did it force Harr to endorse Riley’s version of the story. Riley v. Harr, 292 F.3d 282 (1st Cir.2002).
8. No. The drug-testing that was done on Polinski complied with Nebraska’s statutes on the subject. The Nebraska Supreme Court stressed this point and went on to hold that an accusation of drug use at the workplace, without more, would not be highly offensive to a reasonable person and therefore could not give rise to liability for intrusion on solitude. Concerning the public disclosure of private facts claim, the court concluded that OAA was a party in Polinski’s chain of employment. Accordingly, the court held that Sky Harbor’s disclosure of the test result to OAA was not a public disclosure. Polinski v. Sky Harbor Air Service, Inc., 640 N.W.2d 391 (Neb. Sup. Ct. 2002).
9. No. Carafano’s invasion of privacy claim was of the public disclosure of private facts variety. Although Carafano claimed that her home address was a private fact, the high level of public interest in information about celebrities caused the federal district court to conclude that Carafano’s home address was not a private fact. Therefore, Carafano lost her public disclosure of private facts claim. She fared no better on her right of publicity claim. The court concluded that Matchmaker was not trying to use Carafano’s identity to promote its business and that Matchmaker thus did not commercially use her identity. Carafano also lost her defamation claim because, as a public figure, she needed to prove that the defendant made false statements about her with actual malice. However, there was insufficient evidence to indicate that Matchmaker communicated false statements about Carafano with knowledge that the statements were false or with reckless disregard for the truth. Carafano v. Metrosplash.com., 207 F. Supp. 2d 1055 (C.D. Cal. 2002).
10. Yes, to both questions. The dust helped support the nuisance claim and the trespass claim, because it was an invasion of physical matter. In addition, the extreme noise provided further support for the nuisance claim. Ahnert v. Getty, 1997 Conn. Super. LEXIS 890 (Conn. Superior Ct. 1997).
11. No. Reversing the trial court’s decision that awarded Hoffman a very substantial amount of damages, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the LAM article and picture amounted to noncommercial speech. That is the label usually attached to magazines, newspapers, books, movies, and the like, notwithstanding the presence of an underlying profit motive. The noncommercial classification was important in two respects: first, valid right of publicity claims exist only when a celebrity’s name, likeness, or identity is used in a commercial context (e.g., in an advertisements for a product, service, or business or in a comparably commercial way such as the use of a photo of the celebrity as a poster that is sold); and second, noncommercial speech receives the very substantial degree of First Amendment protection known as “full” protection. Hoffman v. Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., 255 F.3d 1180 (9th Cir. 2001).
12. No. The federal district court noted that “[t]o find that the photograph makes any kind of statement regarding Albright’s sexuality requires the court to pile inference upon innuendo, innuendo upon stereotype.” The court went on to hold that even if it engaged in such an endeavor, Albright’s claim would still fail because “[i]n 2004, a statement implying that an individual is a homosexual is hardly capable of a defamatory meaning.” Albright v. Morton, 321 F. Supp. 2d 130 (D. Mass. 2004).
13. No, for the most part. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to Time and Newsweek and their reporters because the public figure plaintiffs (the Tuckers) could not prove actual malice. However, the Third Circuit held that the lower court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant Fischbein on the Tuckers’ defamation claim pertaining to his later statement about them (the statement he made to the Time reporter, Luscombe. As to that statement, there was a jury question regarding the existence of actual malice. Therefore, the third Circuit remanded that part of the case for trial. There was a jury question as to whether Fischbein made his later statement with actual malice because a reasonable jury could find, by clear and convincing evidence, that Fischbein must have known his statement was untrue, given what was set forth in the amended complaint that he logically would have read.) Tucker v. Fischbein, 237 F.3d 275 (3d Cir. 2001).
14. No, said the Iowa Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court’s decision in favor of T&C. In doing so, the appellate court noted that T&C’s having excluded R&J from the premises (by re-taking possession of it and then leasing it to a new tenant) did not by itself amount to sufficient interference with R&J’s personal property to constitute conversion. The same was true of T&C’s failure to provide the formal, 10-day notice contemplated by the lease before it took possession of the premises. In order to assess the seriousness of the interference, the following factors needed to be considered: the extent and duration of the defendant’s dominion and control over the personal property; the defendant’s intent, if any, to assert a right inconsistent with that of the owner of the personal property; the defendant’s good faith (or bad faith, as the case may be); the extent and duration of the defendant’s interference with the owner’s right of control; the harm, if any, done to the personal property; and the inconvenience and expense experienced by the owner. Applying these factors, the appellate court concluded that T&C (a) acted in good faith when it took possession of the leased premises and re-let the premises to another tenant, (b) did not assert any rights over the personal property, and (c) did not harm the personal property, which remained at the leased premises even during the pendency of the appeal. Moreover, R&J had only contacted T&C once to discuss the return of the personal property. T&C merely asked R&J to contact the new tenant, who then asked R&J to submit a list. R&J, however, never submitted the list and failed to contact T&C again before filing suit. At no time did T&C intend to deny R&J access to its personal property. Under the circumstances, any arguable interference with R&J’s right to its personal property was not serious enough to constitute conversion. McCray v. Carstensen, 492 N.W.2d 444 (Iowa App. 1992).