hi this is Suzanne bashard instructor for American Institute for paralal studies in Tor Law class we've been talking about the intentional torts and in this lecture I want to address an interesting subcategory of intentional tort and that is invasion of privacy the torts of invasion of privacy can cover a variety of situations and the elements for these torts differ by jurisdiction generally speaking though the term invasion of privacy is really sort of a catch-all that usually covers four distinct torts disclosure intrusion appropriation and false light each of the invasion of privacy torts involved the intentional intrusion into somebody's private activities in such a manner as to embarrass humiliate or outrage a person of ordinary sensibilities that is the reasonable person disclosure is the intentional publication of embarrassing Private Affairs the public closure of private facts is an actionable invasion of privacy meaning you can sue somebody for it if it would be highly offensive to the ordinary person to have those facts publicized and if the facts are not legitimately matters of public concerned disclosure Tor amounts to unreasonable publicity about the plaintiff but it must also involve facts that are not already part of the public record so for example publicizing somebody's past criminal record would not not really fall under the Tor of disclosure because a person's criminal record is usually part of the public record on the other hand it's not a defense to the Tor of disclosure that the facts are true so long as the other criteria are met intrusion is a form of invasion of privacy that involves the intentional and unauthorized intrusion physical or otherwise into somebody's private activities or Solitude in order to be actionable the intrusion must be of a type that would be highly offensive to the ordinary reasonable person some examples of intrusion may include such things as eavesdropping reading somebody's email wire tapping their telephone searching through their private possessions that sort of thing appropriation is also considered a form of invasion of privacy appropriation consists of the unauthorized use of someone's name personality or photograph for the defendant's own benefit in other words this tort consists of appropriating some element of the plaintiff's personality for commercial use without the plaintiff's permission an example of this might be using a famous baseball player's photograph on an advertisement for sporting goods false light invasion of privacy involves publicizing something about the plaintiff that places the planet in a false and objectionable position in the public eye the law does not require that the publicized information be private but it does require that it be false this T's really very similar to defamation in that the false publicity exposes the plaintiff to ridicule hatred or contempt false light invasion of privacy may involve attributing to the plaintiff certain characteristics conduct or beliefs that are not true now not all jurisdictions recognize all of these invasion of privacy CHS for example a growing number of states are rejecting the common law Tor of false light because it's too duplicative of the Tor of defamation those that do recognize these torts may have different approaches to each tort so a paralal working in a personal injury law practice really should be familiar with which types of invasion of privacy torts are recognized in his or her state if you're not currently a student at AIP aips and if you're interested in learning more about careers in the law please visit our website at aips