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.