Digital Johnny, Real Johnny

Public Disclosure of Private Facts

I really like my Mass Media book; not only does it have cases that I'm actually want to read, but Diamond isn't forcing us to read all the extra stuff. We just finished "defamation" and now we've moved onto "privacy" issues. The first case (Haynes v. Alfred A Knopf, Inc., 8 F.3d 1222 (7th Cir. 1993)) is about a man who sued because Nicholas Lemann wrote a book using the man's ex-wife's life story to illustrate his points about the effects of blacks moving to the North in the mid 20th century. The husband said the book depicted his "sex life" and "ridicules" his "lovemaking", which is libelous and an invasion of privacy. The court finds no sexual acts or other intimate details described in the book, saying "Entering one's bedroom with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other is not foreplay." Now that's the kind of rule of law I can get behind.