Household Finance Corp. v. Bridge

Finan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In Carr v. Watkins, 227 Md. 578, 177 A. 2d 841 (1962), Judge Hammond (now Chief Judge) expressing the opinion of this Court stated, that Maryland would recognize in a “proper case” the right of a person to redress for an unwarranted invasion of his privacy. We now have before us an appeal from a judgment on the verdict of a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County awarding the appellee the sum of $3,000.00, against the appellant for the latter’s invasion of her privacy. The question is: is this a “proper case” ?

On November 1, 1966, Mrs. Gloria May Bridge (appellee) and her father, Frank Forty une, filed suit against the Household Finance Corporation (appellant) in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, alleging damages for invasion of privacy. Appellant filed a general denial to appellee’s allegation and also filed a counterclaim against appellee and her father for $150.00, the balance alleged to be due on a loan to them. The events which led to the filing of the suit are as follows: In 1964 appellee lived in Rockville, Maryland and was employed as a cosmetologist in a beauty salon. That year she purchased a Corvair automobile from Eaton Chevrolet in the District of Columbia.

The financing arrangements were made by the automobile dealer through the appellant. Frank Fortyune, appellee’s father,- executed the loan papers which obligated him to pay the loan at appellant’s branch office in Seat Pleasant, Maryland. However, even up. to the time that she testified in court, ⁵³³ the appellee thought that she was the maker of the note and the father, the endorser. Appellee took possession of the Corvair and, instead of her father, she made the monthly payments directly to the appellant.

Appellee followed this course of action until October 1, 1965, at which time she was involved in an automobile accident which totally destroyed the Corvair and caused her to be hospitalized with serious injuries. At the time of the accident there was a $900.00 balance due on the loan. Appellee notified appellant of the accident and that she no longer had the car, that she could not continue payments and that her insurance carrier was going to handle the matter. Subsequently the appellant received $750.00 from Nationwide Insurance Company, the appellee’s insurance carrier.

This payment was made to appellant because it was named as loss-payee under the insurance policy between Nationwide and the appellee. This $750.00 reduced appellee’s balance due from $900.00 to $150.00. The appellant contacted appellee and her father in connection with the remaining $150.00 which appellant felt was due after the insurance monies were applied to the loan balance. It is at this point that a conflict develops in the testimony of the respective parties.

Appellee testified that she received a number of telephone calls from a respresentative of the appellant who identified himself as Mr. Bullock, appellant’s credit manager. She claims that the first call was made sometime late in October, 1965, and that it was received around 10:00 P.M. at her home. Appellee testified that she received a total of six or more calls at her home and her testimony as to the content of the calls was as follows: “Q. And what was the subject matter? What was the conversation of these phone calls?

A. Well, he said that he was — that I had to pay this loan, and I said, well, my insurance agent has taken care of that or is going to take care of it; 1 am out of work. When I went to work and I had got them, he would say you have to pay this money, that there’s no way out, and I told him I didn’t owe any money, I’m sorry; I wasn’t going to pay when I didn’t owe. He said, ‘But you do.’ ⁵³⁴ “Q. What else did this Mr. Bullock say to you, Mrs. Bridge? A. Well, he said that he could ruin my credit and I could lose my job, and that anything that I owned could be taken from me and that he would get the money regardless, and that I owed this money and he was responsible for it where he was employed and he wasn’t about to take it out of his pocket and pay it, that I was going to pay it. “Q. Did he say anything else?

A. Yes, he said, ‘You can be put in jail for this.’ “Q. Did he say anything else? A. Well, he said so many things that — you want me to say everything he said ? “Q. I certainly do. A. Well, he said that — ‘We have a way of getting our money and it will ruin j^our reputation.’ ” Appellee also testified that there were two calls made to her employer and that he confronted her about them, as a result of which she had apprehensions that she might lose her job. Appellee’s father, Mr. Fortyune, testified that during this same period of time he too was receiving calls from appellant, three at his shop and two at his home.

Mr. Fortyune told Mr. Bullock that appellee had taken charge of the payments and that he did not owe appellant any money. Appellant’s reply was alleged to be that somebody owed them money and someone was going to have to pay it. Appellee alleged in her declaration that the action of the appellant had caused her to suffer mental anguish, humiliation and embarrassment, and that she was exposed to public contempt and ridicule, that her privacy had been invaded and that the dignity of her home and her reputation in the community had been violated. However, on cross-examination she testified that her credit had not been affected, she had not lost her job, she had no property taken from her, she was not put in jail; to her knowledge no third person, other than her employer, had been told of her alleged indebtedness, and that her salary had not been affected as a result of appellant’s phone calls.

Appellee also testified that the calls began in October, 1965, and ended after ⁵³⁵ she had consulted with her counsel and had initiated suit in November, 1966. At the close of appellee’s case, the appellant moved for a directed verdict, which was denied. The appellant called as its only witness Mr. W. David Bullock, who in 1964 was the branch manager of the appellant’s Seat Pleasant office. Mr. Bullock testified that he had loaned money to Mr. and Mrs. Fortyune but not to appellee, and that a 1963 Corvair was security for such loan.

He testified that payments on the loan had been regularly made until the car was involved in the accident which occurred during October, 1965. He recounted his efforts to collect the $150.00 balance due on the loan after the appellant had received the proceeds from the appellee’s insurance policy. He could only recall having one conversation with the appellee and denied having ever called her at her place of employment; claiming that the appellant never knew of her place of employment because the appellee had not signed the note. He denied making any threats to the appellee as alleged in her testimony.

In sum, he stated that he had called the appellee once and her father, five times; that no call was made after 8:30 P.M. and that the nature of the calls was an insistent but not intemperate demand for payment. At the close of the appellant’s case, appellant renewed its motion for a directed verdict which was again denied, and the appellant’s counterclaim against the appellee was dismissed. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant (appellant) in the action brought by Frank Fortyune for invasion of privacy; and against Fortyune and in favor of appellant on its counterclaim for $150.00. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff (appellee), Gloria May Bridge and against the appellant for $3,000.00' for damages resulting from an invasion of privacy.

The appellant on this appeal contends that the trial court erred in denying its motion for a directed verdict at the conclusion of the appellee’s case. There is little need to revisit the ground covered by Chief Judge Hammond in Carr v. Watkins, 227 Md. 578 , 177 A. 2d 841 (1962), wherein he laid the foundation for the recognition by this Court of a cause of action for an invasion of privacy, even ⁵³⁶ though the communications be oral; there is an array of cases and authorities cited in Carr . The instant case does not reach us on an appeal from the ruling of the lower court sustaining a demurrer to the declaration stating the cause of action, as did Carr . In the case at bar, on the authority of Carr , the lower court recognized the right of action and heard the case on its merits.

We must now decide whether the evidence presented on the question of the invasion of privacy, was legally sufficient to warrant the consideration by the jury of that issue. To that end it is helpful to review the elements which constitute an action in tort for invasion of privacy. When Carr was decided in 1962 the opinion paraphrased the Restatement of Torts, in the following language: “4 Restatement, Torts, Sec. 867 [1939] states the law to be that ‘A person who unreasonably and seriously interferes with another’s interest in not having his affairs known to others or his likeness exhibited to the public is liable to the other.’ Comment d says in part: ‘The rule stated in this section is not dependent upon conduct which, aside from the invasion of privacy, would be tortious, such as trespass to land or chattels or defamation. * * * liability exists only if the defendant’s conduct was such he would have realized that it would be offensive to persons of ordinary sensibilities. * * * The damages whether nominal, compensatory or punitive can be awarded in the same way in which general damages are given for defamation.’ “The Restatement further points out in Comment a to Sec. 867 that the tort of invasion of privacy in some aspects is similar to the interest in reputation which is the basis for an action for defamation, since both interests have relation to the opinions of third persons. On the other hand, unlike defamation, the right of action in invasion of privacy does not depend on the falsity of a statement or communication which amounts to such an invasion.

Prosser, Torts (2d ed.), p. 638; Warren and Brandéis, ‘The Right of Privacy.’ 4 Harv ⁵³⁷ L. Rev. 193, 218.” (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 586-587 . The above referred to sections of the Restatement were prepared by Professor Warren A. Seavey and, although published in 1939, represented the latest pronouncement by the Restatement on the law of invasion of privacy, which admittedly was in a state of flux. The whole area of invasion of privacy has been brought into better focus in the past several years and its present status is best expressed by Professor Prosser in his Handbook of the Law of Torts, (3d ed. 1964) Ch. 22, p. 832, wherein it is stated: “The early cases in all jurisdictions were understandably preoccupied with the question whether the right of privacy existed at all, and gave little or no consideration to what it would amount to if it did. Today, with something over three hundred cases in the books, some rather definite conclusions are possible.

What has emerged is no very simple matter. It is not one tort, but a complex of four. The law of privacy comprises four distinct kinds of invasion of four different interests of the plaintiff, which are tied together by the common name, but otherwise have almost nothing in common except that each represents an interference with the right of the plaintiff ‘to be let alone.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) Professor Prosser is now the Reporter for the Restatement, covering the sections on invasion of privacy, and in Tentative Draft No. 13, published April 27, 1967, of the Restatement of the La/wSecond, Torts there is found listed in § 652A the four different kinds of invasions of privacy : “§ 652A. Meaning of Invasion of Privacy The Right of Privacy is Invaded When There Is (a) Unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another, * * * (b) Appropriation of the other’s name or likeness, ⁵³⁸ (c) Unreasonable publicity given to the other’s private life, * * * (d) Publicity which unreasonably places the other in a false light before the public, * * The text writers and authorities make it clear that an invasion of the right of privacy by anyone of the above four courses of conduct may give rise to a cause of action and, on occasion, there may be an overlapping or concurrent invasion by any or all of the above means working toward the injury of the plaintiff.

Restatement Second, 652A, Comment d. Bringing these concepts to bear on the facts of the instant case, it is obvious, that we are concerned only with an invasion of privacy arising out of “Unreasonable Publicity” given to a private fact, or “Unreasonable Intrusion,” or both. There is nothing in the