DEFAMATION / INVASION OF PRIVACY

Jensen v. Sawyers, No. 20011023 (Utah Nov. 15, 2005)

A news program sent an undercover reporter to a physician's office to interview him about his alleged practice of illegally prescribing weight loss drugs. After the physician offered to "work with" the reporter to secure the drugs for an improper use, the news channel produced and aired three broadcasts highlighting the physician's prescription practices. The physician sued the news company for defamation and a jury trial found for the physician.

The Supreme Court of Utah held that the physician's false light invasion of privacy claim shared a one-year statute of limitations with a defamation claim, and therefore the trial court incorrectly allowed this claim to go forward based on the first two broadcasts. However, this claim was not barred in the case of the third broadcast and the court held that the trial court did not err by stating in its jury instructions that a false light invasion of privacy claim must concern only the physician's private affairs, as opposed to stating that it must involve only his personal life. Next, the court held that the news company did not establish grounds to overturn the physician's intrusion upon seclusion claim and declined to conclude that the jury unreasonably determined that the falsely represented presence of the news reporter in the physician's examination room deprived that environment of privacy. The news company also challenged the jury verdict awarding damages for defamation because it claimed the content of the third broadcast was substantially true. However, because the news company failed to offer any evidence to support this theory, the court dismissed the claim. Finally, the court determined that the jury had improperly found malice to exist in the third broadcast because the only inconsistency in the report was the substitution "the doctor promised me pills" for "the doctor agreed to work with me about the pills." Therefore, the court found the jury improperly awarded punitive damages for this finding.