Legal Research

The More Things Change. . .

By Rebekah

. . .the more they stay the same. Privacy rights is a hot topic in the Internet Age, but the issues have been around for a long time. For example, back in 1976, a sports figure plaintiff sued a popular magazine for invasion of privacy. The defendant had reported activities from the plaintiff’s earlier years, including putting cigarettes out in his mouth, diving off stairs to impress women, eating insects, and hurting himself in order to collect unemployment and create free time for bodysurfing at the beach. The court found that the activities reported, “though generally unflattering and perhaps embarrassing, were simply not offensive to a degree of morbidity or sensationalism as would have precluded their publication in defendants’ magazine as newsworthy.” Check out Virgil v. Sports Illustrated, 424 F.Supp. 1286 (D.C.Cal. 1976). [Research hint: if searching online, use party names or reporter citation as your search query.]
(RKM)

Full post as published by Cocky Law Blawg on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).