The Ohio Supreme Court today recognized a claim for "false light" invasion of privacy. This claim arises where one party knowingly or recklessly publicizes false information about a person that is highly offensive.
The case, Welling v. Weinfeld, involved the Weinfeld's party center in Stark County and its neighbor, the Wellings. The two did not get along. The Wellings did not like the parties and traffic at the party center and the party center did not appreciate that a rock was thrown through its window.
Suspecting that one of the Welling kids launched the offending rock, Weinfeld distributed a flyer that said:
$500.00
REWARD
for any information which leads to the
conviction of the person(s) responsible
for throwing a rock through the window
of Lakeside Center Banquet Hall
(also known as the “Party Center”)
in the Dee Mar Allotment, in Perry
Township, on Monday, May 8th or
Tuesday, May 9th, 2000.
____________________________________
Any tips will be kept confidential.
Call the Perry Township Police
Department’s Detective Bureau at
478-5121.
Reward will be paid in cash.
Although the flier did not name any names, the Weinfelds distributed the flyer at the factory where a Welling kid worked and at the high school that he attended. He sued, claiming that the flyer placed him in a false light.
When the case reached the Ohio Supreme Court, the court did not decide whether the Welling boy threw the rock or whether the suggestion that he had would offend a reasonable person. Instead, the Court decided whether, assuming that those facts were true, Ohio would allow him to pursue a previously unrecognized "false light" claim. The Ohio Supreme Court said yes, he could. False light invasion of privacy is now a viable cause of action in Ohio.
The elements of a false light invasion of privacy claim are:
- publicity as to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light;
- the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and
- the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.
"Publicity" means that the matter is made public by communicating it to the public at large, or to so many persons that the matter must be regarded as substantially certain to become one of public knowledge. Thus, publicity includes any means of communication, whether oral, written or by any other means that reaches the public, or is sure to reach the public.
This case may provide a remedy for employees who are falsely accused of sexual harassment where the accusation reaches, or is communicated in a way that is sure to reach, the public. In that context, the public could possibly mean the workplace community.
This case does not address the main problem of the falsely accused, which is the lack of an adequate means to challenge the falsity of the accusation and lack of a remedy if they lose their job because of it. However, where the complainant takes the complaint to the public, the falsely accused now has the right to prove that it is false in a court of law and recover damages from the accuser if the accusation is offensive to a reasonable person. This is a step in the right direction.
