Slaughter None wrote:Gravlen wrote:Why would this "go to court"? The NYT would not be in legal trouble for admitting it if they actually had a plan to publish his adress (there's no credible evidence supporting that they did have such a plan). In fact,
the NYT would not be in legal trouble if they had published his adress. This is the second time you've thrown out the idea of legal ramifications without any further details, by the way.
I never said they would face legal ramifications for admitting anything but if they had posted his home address they might have have faced charges for invasion of privacy, read here:-
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/publis ... nformation
That's absurd. As the link you provided says, the following must be true in order to establish legal liability:
1. Public Disclosure: The disclosure of facts must be public. Another way of saying this is that the defendant must "give publicity" to the fact or facts in question.
2. Private Fact: The fact or facts disclosed must be private, and not generally known.
3. Offensive to a Reasonable Person: Publication of the private facts in question must be offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities.
4. Not Newsworthy: The facts disclosed must not be newsworthy. Stated differently, the facts disclosed must not be a matter of legitimate public concern.
If nothing else, such a claim would fail under no. 3. As your link continues to explain:
A plaintiff bringing a publication of private facts claim must show that, under the circumstances, publishing the facts in question would have been highly offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities. The question is not whether the plaintiff himself/herself found the public disclosure highly offensive, but whether an ordinary person reflecting community mores would find it so. Thus, the law does not give special solicitude to a plaintiff with a "thin skin." As the Restatement of Torts explains:
Complete privacy does not exist in this world except in a desert, and anyone who is not a hermit must expect and endure the ordinary incidents of the community life of which he is a part. Thus he must expect the more or less casual observation of his neighbors as to what he does, and that his comings and goings and his ordinary daily activities, will be described in the press as a matter of casual interest to others. The ordinary reasonable man does not take offense at a report in a newspaper that he has returned from a visit, gone camping in the woods or given a party at his house for his friends. Even minor and moderate annoyance, as for example through public disclosure of the fact that the plaintiff has clumsily fallen downstairs and broken his ankle, is not sufficient to give him a cause of action under the rule stated in this Section. It is only when the publicity given to him is such that a reasonable person would feel justified in feeling seriously aggrieved by it, that the cause of action arises.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 263D cmt. c. Some examples of activities found to be highly offensive include publishing a photograph of a woman nursing a child or posing nude in a bathtub, displaying a movie of a woman's caesarian operation, and disseminating a video showing two celebrities having sex. Some activities found not to be highly offensive include publishing an accurate account of a private wedding, publishing a photograph of a couple kissing in public, and publishing photographs of military personnel showing potential prisoner abuse.
Tucker Carlson is living openly at a fixed adress. That's something easily observed from the outside, and the openness of a public adress. It would thus fail at no. 3.
There's an additional wrinkle. As your link shows:
In Cox Broadcasting v. Cohen, 420 U.S. 469 (1975), the Supreme Court of the United States held that the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits states from imposing a penalty on the press for publishing accurate information obtained from a public court record. As a result of this case, most states recognize an absolute privilege for publication of information found in a publicly available (i.e., not sealed) court record.
Let me remind you that a lawsuit was filed against Carlson in both his professional and personal capacity. If the story refers to the lawsuit, and the lawsuit identifies his adress, it is protected speech.
So again, no, they could not face any such charges. (Mind you, we're only talking civil action here, and not criminal charges.)