## Facts

- Marvin Briscoe committed a truck hijacking in Danville, Kentucky on December 15, 1956.
- Briscoe alleged he promptly reformed, lived an exemplary life, and reentered respectable society; many friends and his family were unaware of the prior crime.
- About 11 years later, Reader’s Digest published an article, “The Big Business of Hijacking,” describing truck thefts and anti-hijacking efforts.
- The article included a sentence naming Briscoe and describing his hijacking and a gun battle with police.
- The publication did not state the hijacking occurred in 1956 and allegedly suggested it was part of a current hijacking problem.
- Briscoe alleged the publication caused his daughter and friends to learn of the old crime and to scorn and abandon him.
- Briscoe conceded the reported facts were true and that hijacking as a general topic was newsworthy, but alleged identifying him by name was unnecessary and harmful.

## Issues

1. Whether a complaint states a claim for public disclosure of private facts when a publication truthfully identifies a rehabilitated former offender in connection with a generally newsworthy topic many years after the offense.
2. Whether constitutional protections for reporting matters of public interest bar such a claim as a matter of law at the pleading stage.
3. Whether the trial court properly sustained a general demurrer without leave to amend.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of California reversed the judgment sustaining the demurrer.
- The court held the complaint stated a cause of action for invasion of privacy based on public disclosure of private facts.
- The court rejected dismissal on the ground that truth and general newsworthiness categorically immunize naming the plaintiff.
- The court remanded for further proceedings, concluding that whether the identification was of legitimate public interest should not be resolved on demurrer in a close case.

## Legal Principles

- Public disclosure of private facts may be actionable when the publication publicizes private, offensive facts not of legitimate public concern.
- The “newsworthiness” or legitimate-public-interest privilege is not unlimited; it does not protect publication that is an unnecessary, sensational intrusion into private life.
- The newsworthiness of an article’s general subject does not automatically make identification of a particular individual newsworthy; naming may be actionable if not needed to the story’s completeness.
- Over time, and after rehabilitation, an individual may regain a protectable privacy interest in a past criminal episode, and the public’s interest in the individual’s identity may diminish.
- On demurrer, pleaded facts are taken as true; where legitimate public interest is debatable, the issue may require factfinding rather than dismissal at the pleading stage.

## Conclusion

The court allowed Briscoe to proceed on a public-disclosure privacy theory, holding that even a truthful account within a generally newsworthy article can support liability if, given the passage of time and rehabilitation, identifying the individual is not itself of legitimate public concern and is arguably unnecessary to the publication’s informational purpose.


Briscoe v. Reader’s Digest Ass’n, Inc., 4 Cal. 3d 529 (Cal. 1971)