Media Law Assignment - Research Paper Example

Bruce would minister to his father on the phone and his stepmother Edie would listen quietly. One morning Edie asked Bruce questions about Jesus and she agreed to receive Jesus. The complainant's allegation was that the newsletter had published the story online, and one of Edith's relatives had seen it. Edith Rapp claimed that Jews for Jesus falsely alleged that she had joined their organization. In the alternative, the complainant alleged that the organization had meant that she had come to believe in the philosophy, actions and tenet of Jews for Jesus.

In her second amended complaint, Edith alleged among others, false light. The court at trial allowed Jews for Jesus to have the complaint dismissed, and several paragraphs to be struck from the complaint as the Fourth District court had said that the paragraphs were primarily polemical ' against Jews for Jesus. The trial court dismissed all the subsequent complaints by Edith Rapp. On appeal, the Fourth District addressed the issue of Rapp's dismissed claims. With regard to defamation, the court was of the view that the 'common mind' reading the newsletter would not find Edith an object of among others, ridicule.

The court’s conclusion was communication would only be defamatory if the plaintiff was prejudiced in the eyes of "substantial and respectable minority of the community." The conclusion of the court was that the standard had not been applied. Nevertheless, the court affirmed the dismissal of his defamation claim on the basis of the community standard applicable. False light had its origin in the common law tort of invasion of privacy. William L. Prosser, a leading scholar in tort law expounded on the tort of invasion of privacy developed this area of law.

Prosser's proposal was that invasion of privacy was made of four torts, which were distinct, and among them was false light. The Supreme Court found that elements of false light and defamation overlap. The Supreme Court argued that having the test of "highly offensive to a reasonable person" standard has the risk of preventing free speech because the conduct, which is prohibited, is not very clear. It was the court's opinion that the law of tort is meant to prevent as well as recompense wrongful conduct, then it should be clear in identifying the wrongful conduct.

The court thus found the tort of false light could not pass that test. The area in which this taught differed with defamation was ambiguous and prone to a lot of subjectivity. The court found that having "highly offensive" information recognized even when a reasonable person would find it highly offensive involved a component of subjectivity. Based on the court's review of the law in Florida and other jurisdictions, it stated that it could not ignore the overlap between defamation and false light.

Though the court acknowledged that in a majority of the states does recognize false light as a cause of action, what was striking was the fact that the review of this decision revealed that no case, in which judgment was solely based on false light cause of action has ever been successful. In conclusion, the court declined to recognize false light as a suitable cause of action in the state of Florida and quashed the Fourth District's decision in reinstating Rapp's false light claim. 2. Intrusion Intrusion is based how a person from the media behaves.

Intrusion thus depends less on