Intentional infliction of emotional distress是什么意思
这是回忆在1988年美国发生的著名官司 Hustler Magazine vs Falwell。在这个案件中，美国首席法官 Rehnquist在最高法院一致裁定被告人败诉，被告人是一位知名人士以民事侵权行为控告一家无耻的杂志抄袭其作品，并由于其没有在转载作者处明确标明事实，蓄意造成被告人精神痛楚。
privacy & intrusion
Supervision ; Jan2007, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p23-26, 4p
Invasion of privacy has become an increasingly important source of liability for companies. As people have become more crowded together, and as technology has become more and more sophisticated, greater opportunities exist for employers to infringe upon employees' expectations of privacy. Invasion of privacy is a common law tort that is sometimes embodied in a statute. The precise definition will depend on the particular state being discussed. However, most states agree on the general parameters of this tort. A tort is a non-criminal cause of action in which the aggrieved individual seeks monetary compensation for wrongs done to them. Damages may be compensatory, such as reimbursement of medical expenses, or punitive, designed to punish the wrongdoer and deter others from engaging in the same conduct.
Invasion of privacy can take many forms. One form is using someone's name or likeness without his or her permission. An example might be a company exhibiting photographs of an injured employee during a safety workshop without the injured worker's consent. Another form of invasion of privacy is publication of information that portrays an employee in a false light. An example might be an employer wrongfully, attributing conduct to a particular employee when speaking with other people. A third type of invasion of privacy consists of making confidential information public about an employee. This might involve revealing an employee's medical records to other employees who are not on a "need to know" basis. The final type of invasion of privacy deals with a physical intrusion on an employee's privacy. Examples are searches of employees, peeping into bathroom windows, and so on.
This last category of invasion of privacy was recently the subject of a lawsuit involving hidden videotaping equipment in a jointly shared office. The case explored the question of when employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy when an employer is justified in secretly videotaping employees, and Whether or not employees must actually be viewed to maintain a viable cause of action. Although the lawsuit involved a residential facility for abused children, the principles at issue are equally applicable to any workplace.
The case was Hernandez v. Hillsides, Inc., 25 IER Cases 174 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006) and was before the appellate court on appeal of the trial court's granting of a motion for summary judgment. The following are the facts set forth in papers filed by the parties in connection with the motion for summary judgment and relied upon by the appellate court in reaching its decision. The plaintiffs were two women who occupied clerical positions for the defendant facility. They shared an office in a building on the campus. The office had a window with shades and a locking door, as well as a "doggy door" minus the flap. Approximately 11 employees had keys to the door. One of the women would sometimes change clothes in the office to go to the gym, and, on occasion, the other woman would lift up her shirt to show her office mate her progress in recovering from childbirth.
In July 2002, the defendants' computer technician told the defendants that he suspected someone was looking at pornographic websites at night on company computers, including one in the plaintiffs' office. At no time did the company identify to the court the websites being visited or provide a log of dates and times such viewing occurred. The company already had surveillance equipment that it had purchased earlier to prevent thefts from the administration building. The company, including the defendant director, various department heads and administrative staff members, decided to use the surveillance equipment in areas where the wrongful computer usage had taken place. The plaintiffs were not told about this decision because of fear that they would gossip about it and inadvertently warn the wrongdoers about the investigation.
Initially, the motion-activated video surveillance system was placed in the computer lab. However, it was moved to the plaintiffs' office in October. The camera and motion detector were placed on a shelf. Images would be broadcast to a storage room across the hall. Four individuals were aware of the set-up. The plaintiffs were not among them. The defendant director maintained that the system was only used on three evenings. The first night, the system was connected after the plaintiffs left work and removed from the room before the plaintiffs arrived for work the next morning. The second and third times, the camera and motion detector were left in the room plugged in. According to the director, the receptor was only connected after the women left work for the day and disconnected before the women returned for work the next day. No information was provided to the court about which three days the system was utilized.
On a Friday afternoon in late October, the two women noticed a red light on a shelf in their office that blinked when there was movement in front of it. They discovered the plugged in camera. They notified their supervisor who called the director at home. The director had not been into the office that day. The director spoke with one of the women and explained to her the origin of the camera. He assured her that the equipment had not been used to watch the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs were very upset. When they returned to work on Wednesday, they asked to see the surveillance tape. The tape that was given them showed only the empty office, the director adjusting the camera, and static. The director stated that he had been planning on removing the camera that weekend because no wrongful computer usage had been discovered during the three weeks the office had periodically been viewed.
The plaintiffs sued the company and the director for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the claims. On appeal, the appellate court upheld the dismissal of the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim on the grounds that the defendants' conduct was not extreme or outrageous enough to warrant liability on that count. It also upheld the dismissal of the negligent infliction of emotional distress claim because negligence was not adequately raised in the complaint, and any damages that would result from negligent infliction of emotional distress could be awarded as part of the invasion of privacy claim. The appellate court did reverse the trial court on the invasion of privacy issue and found that there were issues of fact warranting sending the case to the jury.
The appellate court stated that intrusion, in the context of invasion of privacy, occurs when someone "'intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns'" and "'the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.'" This tort was designed to protect "'individual dignity,'" the "right to be left alone," and "peace of mind." it covers physical invasion of private places without consent, as well as "'unwarranted sensory intrusions such as eavesdropping, wiretapping, and visual or photographic spying.'" Because so many variables are present in such a case, each situation is viewed by courts on its own merits.
The defendants offered several reasons why they should not be found liable for invasion of privacy. The first argument was that the plaintiffs' privacy had not been invaded because they were never actually recorded or viewed by the camera. The court disagreed. The wrongful act was the intrusion, not the viewing. The extent to which the plaintiffs were observed might he a factor in the amount of damages awarded, but not in the finding of liability. This decision, the court said, was in accord with decisions of other jurisdictions that had found an invasion of privacy simply by virtue of intrusion. One case involved see-through panels in the ceiling of a restroom at a roller skating rink that allowed views into the stalls. Another involved a hotel room mirror that was scratched through to allow someone in the adjacent room to surreptitiously view people in the room. In both cases, the courts found that it was not determinative whether the plaintiffs in those cases had actually been observed in finding that an unlawful invasion of privacy had occurred. Accordingly, the court in the present case found that merely placing the surveillance equipment in the plaintiffs' office permitted anyone with access to the storage area to activate the equipment and observe the plaintiffs without their knowledge and could constitute invasion of privacy.
Additionally, the court stated, even it viewing of the plaintiffs was required to make out an invasion of privacy case, the defendants had not provided sufficient evidence that the plaintiffs had not been viewed. Although the defendant director stated that he had never viewed the plaintiffs, three other people had access to the storage room and could have activated the equipment. The director did not provide information on exactly when he had used the equipment, and, although he had testified that he deactivated it in the morning before the plaintiffs came in to work, on the day the plaintiffs discovered the equipment, he was at home and could nut have deactivated it.
The defendants next contended that the plaintiffs did not have an expectation of privacy in their office. The office was jointly shared; someone could climb over the outside rail and look in the window if the blinds were open; someone could stoop anti look into the room through the doggie door; numerous people had keys to the office; four surveillance cameras were located on other parts of the campus; and the plaintiffs had signed documents acknowledging the company's computer monitoring policies that allowed the company to monitor their company computers at any time. Again, the court disagreed. Privacy, the court stated, existed along a spectrum. It was not all or nothing. Relevant factors were who might have been able to observe the parties, who were the intruders, and how was the intrusion accomplished. Although these plaintiffs did not have complete privacy in their shared office, it was reasonable for them to expect that images of them would not be secretly recorded and transmitted to another part of the building with access by several other people when their office door was closed. The monitoring document the plaintiffs had signed referred to computer monitoring, not videotaping.
The next issue the court addressed was whether the intrusion would he highly offensive to a reasonable person. Here, the court found that it could be. Photographic and electronic equipment can be used in ways that greatly affect personal privacy. Here, for no legitimate reason, a functioning motion-activated camera was left in an office while the plaintiffs were present without notifying them so that they could have altered their behavior to safeguard their privacy.
Finally, the defendants contended that the surveillance was necessary to apprehend whoever was using the computers to access pornographic materials during the night in violation of company policies. While the court noted that in some instances such conduct would justify surveillance, the defendants had provided scant information about what had been accessed when. Furthermore, even if the defendants had provided the requisite information, the presence of the cameras during the work day with the capability of monitoring two employees not under suspicion was not justified. Additionally, the plaintiffs had noted that less intrusive ways were available to conduct an investigation of illicit computer usage.
In conclusion, the appellate court found that sufficient questions existed as to the offensiveness of the defendants' conduct and the claimed justification of their actions to warrant sending the case to trial. Thus, it overturned the district court's granting of the motion for summary judgment with respect to the invasion of privacy claims.
故意造成情绪困扰
例句:
1.
The father of the fallen marine, albert snyder, sued the protesters for, among otherthings, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and won a substantial jury awardthat was later overturned by an appeals court.
死者的父亲阿尔伯特斯奈德以故意精神伤害向法院起诉了这些抗议者，并且赢得了关键的陪审团决议，但是随后被上诉法院推翻了。
2.
The lawsuit for emotional distress says wolf is "now is unable to engage in sexualactivity, which is causing him substantial emotional and mental anguish."
关于情绪困扰方面的诉讼说，沃尔夫现在已经不能进行性行为，这使他处于巨大的精神痛苦中
故意造成情绪困扰的意思。
