Celebrity right to privacy? defamation? LAW QUESTION!?

[Catherine]

Truth sometimes being stranger than fiction, you might look at lawsuits filed in the real world.

Take this one from the mother of Natalee Holloway, who vanished during a school trip in Aruba after a date with suspect Joran van der Sloot:

http://www.rosespeaks.com/2012/08/09/l-l...-mom-beth/

Here mother sued the National Enquirer for some of the articles they published -- some story about a map to Natalee's grave and other bizarre claims. Here's a description of the lawsuit from CBS News:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/beth-hollowa...ppearance/

Beth Holloway sued them for invasion of privacy and other claims arising from the National Enquirer's "false and horrific headlines, statements, photographs" intending "to profit off the tragic and still unresolved disappearance of Natalee Holloway." Alabama law lets people sue for "outrage" -- called "intentional infliction of emotional distress" in other states.

The Alabama judge's order is posted here:

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/dist.../143581/50

The National Enquirer's lawyers insisted there was nothing illegal about what was published. All the articles were about a possible murder on foreign soil of a U.S. citizen, a topic “of public concern” that makes it everybody's business (not an invasion of privacy). They said Natalee's mother may be upset, but the articles aren't about her personally, so she has no right to sue them. As for infliction of emotional distress, the National Enquirer was publishing news, conduct which is not "outrageous" for a publishing company, and anyway, Natalee's mother was upset about her daughter's disappearance -- not what they were printing.

Most cases like this end up going nowhere. But in Alabama, one of the rare moments altering the standard of liability arises when you write about someone who died.

Thus, the judge decided that "graphic descriptions of the treatment of her daughter’s corpse" could be a basis for a legitimate claim for the tort of outrage against the National Enquirer. Coverage of “family burials” is one of those "cases in which this tort has been applied," said the judge, siding with Beth Halloway about editors "falsely reporting gruesome details of a daughter’s death."

The judge's order is enlightening about Alabama laws and privacy. It cites for instance the failed lawsuit of a family that sued for publication of a photo showing a relative "dying of cancer" several years earlier, Fitch v Voit.

Jennifer Aniston had a case in 2005 where she sued for photos that she said could only have been taken if the photographer was trespassing:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/aniston-sues...ss-photos/

Photographer Peter Brandt had to have used a telephoto lens to shoot Aniston when she was the inside her house, walking around topless or half naked. TMZ published its own version of the tale:

http://www.tmz.com/2006/05/24/topless-in-the-treetops/

They later settled:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1531538,00.html

Sounds like a good plot. I'd like to read it.