LEGL 2700 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Stored Communications Act, Malicious Prosecution, False Arrest
26 Apr 2018
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CHAPTER 10 | TORTS | TEXTBOOK NOTES
• Tort: civil wrong other than a breach of contract
Intentional Torts
• Intentional torts deal with intent
o Intent: desire to bring about certain results
• Assault: place of another in immediate apprehension for his/her physical safety
• Battery: illegal touching of another
• Infliction of mental distress: battery to the emotions
• Invasion of privacy:
o Most commonly, liability will be imposed on a defendant who appropriates the plaintiff's
name or likeness for his/her own use
o Defendant's intrusion upon the plaintiff's physical solitude
o Defendant's public disclosure of highly objectionable, private info about the plaintiff
o Ehling v. Monmouth-Ocean Hospital Service Corp.
• MONOC provides emergency medical services
• Ehling (plantiff) is a nurse/paramedic, sued MONOC for violations of the SCA
▪ She posted something regarding a shooting at the Holocaust Museum (MONOC
thought post showed a disregard for patient safety)
▪ SCA: protects private communications that have been stored in some way;
prohibits anyone (including employers) for accessing electronic communications
in electronic storage w/o authorization
▪ Ehling claimed that MONOC accessed her Facebook wall posts which were set to
private (she selected privacy settings for her account that limited access to her
Facebook wall to only her Fb friends)
▪ She had many coworkers as Fb "friends", none of whom were managers of
MONOC.
• W/o her knowledge, one of her coworkers took screenshots of her Fb wall
and emailed them to MONOC management
▪ She took steps to limit access to the info on her Fb wall- not the number of
"friends" the user has
▪ By authorizing her coworker to access her Fb wall, court found that it also
meant MONOC was also authorized to view the posts because the posts were
provided to management w/o payment/coercion
• MONOC wins the case
• Employers should avoid taking active steps to seek out their employees' private social
media postings
• Employers should consider training their management not to pressure their
employees to provide such info
• Ruled that the federal Stored Communications Act covers "private" Facebook wall
posts
• False imprisonment: confinement of a nonconsenting person
• Malicious prosecution: false arrest; arises from causing someone to be arrested criminally w/o
proper grounds
• Trespass: to enter another's land w/o consent or to remain there after being asked to leave
• Conversion: wrongful exercise of power and control over the personal (nonland) resources that
belong to another
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