University student Cynthia Moreno published a
rant on her MySpace page detailing the failings of her home town,
Coalinga in California. Calling it an 'Ode to Coalinga', she wrote:
"the older I get, the more I realize how much I despise Coalinga,",
before going on to criticise the town.
She removed the post six days later, but the
principal of the school she had attended handed a copy of the post
to the editor of the local newspaper, who printed it under her full
name. Only her first name had been used to sign the post.
The letter was printed in the Coalinga Record
by its editor, Pamela Pond. Moreno's sister and mother and father
still lived in the town, where her father had a business.
The family were threatened and a shot was fired
at their house. They closed the family business and moved away.
Moreno tried to sue the newspaper, but the
court upheld its claims that it was exempt from the suit under
California laws designed to stop people intimidating news
organisations and stifling free speech. Moreno's suit was then
targeted against the school district and the principal of the
school who had handed the blog posting to the newspaper editor.
The Court of Appeal for the state of California
said that Moreno had no right to take a privacy case because
MySpace is public, not private.
"A crucial ingredient of the applicable
invasion of privacy cause of action is a public disclosure of
private facts. A matter that is already public or that has
previously become part of the public domain is not private," said
the Court's ruling.
"Here, Cynthia publicized her opinions about
Coalinga by posting the Ode on myspace.com, a hugely popular
internet site. Cynthia’s affirmative act made her article available
to any person with a computer and thus opened it to the public eye.
Under these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an
expectation of privacy regarding the published material," it
said.
The Court said that the fact that Moreno's last
name had been added to the newspaper version of the article was
immaterial. Her photo and the context of the MySpace page made it
clear who she was, the Court said.
But the claim that the actions of the school
principal were sufficiently extreme and outrageous to result in
liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress may yet
succeed, the Court said.
Moreno's case claims that the school principal
Roger Campbell's actions were designed to punish her for the
contents of the article, that he knew he did not have permission to
submit it for publication, and that he intended to cause Moreno and
her family emotional distress. The case said that the actions were
extreme and outrageous, particularly in the context of his being
the school principal.
The Court refused to strike out this claim and
said that Moreno was entitled to a jury trial on the matter.
"Based on these allegations, we conclude that
reasonable people may differ on whether Campbell’s actions were
extreme and outrageous," said the ruling. "Accordingly, it is for a
jury to make this determination."
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