Catsouras v. Department of California Highway Patrol
38 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1708, 104 Cal. Rptr. 3d 352, 181 Cal. App. 4th 856 (2010)
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Rule of Law:
Surviving family members have a common law right to privacy in the death images of a decedent. Law enforcement officers owe a duty of care to the family of a decedent not to publicly disseminate gruesome death images for non-official purposes, and may be held liable for negligence, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress for doing so.
Facts:
- On October 31, 2006, 18-year-old Nicole Catsouras was decapitated in an automobile accident.
- California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers, including Thomas O’Donnell and Aaron Reich, arrived at the scene and took multiple photographs of Catsouras's decapitated corpse as part of the official investigation.
- O'Donnell and Reich e-mailed nine graphic photographs of Catsouras's remains to their personal friends and family members for non-investigative purposes, allegedly for "shock value" on Halloween.
- The photographs were subsequently forwarded by the initial recipients and spread across thousands of websites on the Internet.
- Internet users began taunting the Catsouras family with the photographs through emails and other online messages.
- One email sent to Christos Catsouras, the decedent's father, contained the photographs and was titled, "Woo Hoo Daddy," with a message saying, "Hey Daddy I’m still alive."
Procedural Posture:
- The Catsouras family (plaintiffs) filed a second amended complaint against the CHP, O'Donnell, and Reich in a California superior court (trial court).
- The CHP filed a demurrer to the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 cause of action, which the trial court sustained based on sovereign immunity.
- O'Donnell and Reich (defendants) each filed demurrers to all causes of action against them, arguing they owed no duty of care to the plaintiffs.
- The trial court sustained the demurrers of O'Donnell and Reich without leave to amend and entered judgments of dismissal in their favor.
- The CHP then filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings on the remaining vicarious liability claim, arguing no underlying liability existed, which the trial court granted.
- The Catsouras family (appellants) appealed the dismissals and the judgment on the pleadings to the California Court of Appeal.
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Issue:
Do law enforcement officers owe a duty of care to the surviving family members of a decedent not to disseminate graphic death-scene photographs for non-investigative purposes, thereby giving rise to claims for negligence and invasion of privacy?
Opinions:
Majority - Moore, J.
Yes, law enforcement officers owe a duty of care to the family of a decedent not to disseminate death-scene photographs for non-investigative purposes. The court distinguished the general rule that a right to privacy dies with a person, reasoning that death images only come into existence after death and can only cause harm to the living. Citing persuasive authority like National Archives v. Favish, the court recognized that surviving family members have a common law privacy right to limit the public exploitation of a deceased's remains. For the negligence claim, the court applied the Rowland v. Christian factors and found a duty existed based on the high foreseeability of devastating emotional trauma to the family, the moral blame attached to the officers' conduct, and the public policy of preventing future harm. The court also found the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress could proceed because plaintiffs alleged the officers acted with the intent to cause them emotional distress. The federal § 1983 claim failed due to qualified immunity, as the family's constitutional privacy right in death images was not clearly established at the time.
Concurring - Aronson, J.
Yes, a duty exists, and the plaintiffs stated a valid claim for invasion of privacy. This conclusion is grounded in existing California privacy torts, specifically intrusion into private matters and public disclosure of private facts. The family had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the photographs, which were a nonpublic "data source," a conclusion supported by California Code of Civil Procedure § 129, which restricts the copying of coroner and death-scene photographs. The defendants' alleged dissemination of the images was an intrusion into this private matter. Furthermore, the gruesome details in the photographs were not of legitimate public concern or newsworthy, satisfying an element of the public disclosure tort. The duty for the negligence claim therefore arises from the duties imposed by California's privacy laws.
Analysis:
This decision significantly expands tort liability in California by establishing that surviving family members possess an independent, common law privacy interest in the death images of a decedent. It carves out a major exception to the long-standing rule that privacy rights are personal and extinguish upon death. By applying the flexible Rowland factors to find a duty of care for negligence, the court broadened the scope of liability for law enforcement officers beyond traditional 'special relationship' scenarios. This case creates a precedent for holding public employees accountable for foreseeable emotional harm caused by actions that, while enabled by their official position, serve no legitimate public or law enforcement purpose.
