## Facts

- Billie Reba Trotti worked in the hosiery department at K-Mart Store No. 7441.
- K-Mart provided employee lockers for storing personal effects during working hours.
- Employees could use company locks (with management retaining a key or combination), but management also allowed employees to use their own locks without providing a key or combination to K-Mart.
- Trotti, with K-Mart’s knowledge, used a locker secured by her own combination lock.
- On October 31, 1981, Trotti placed her purse in her locker, locked it, and later returned to find the lock hanging open and the purse’s contents disturbed; nothing was missing.
- The store manager, accompanied by administrators, searched lockers that day while investigating a suspected employee theft of a watch and looking for missing price-marking guns.
- Evidence conflicted on whether employees were clearly told lockers were subject to search.
- Trotti sued for invasion of privacy, claiming the locker search caused mental anguish and humiliation.
- A jury awarded $8,000 actual damages and $100,000 exemplary damages; the trial court rendered judgment on the verdict.

## Issues

1. Whether the jury instruction on invasion of privacy was erroneous for failing to require that the intrusion be “highly offensive to a reasonable person.”
2. Whether evidence supported a finding that Trotti had a reasonable expectation of privacy in a workplace locker secured by her own lock to which the employer had no key or combination.
3. Whether the damages submission improperly permitted duplicative recovery by separately listing “mental anguish” and “embarrassment,” and whether exemplary damages could stand given charge errors.

## Decision

- The court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial.
- The trial court erred by omitting the “highly offensive to a reasonable person” requirement from the intrusion-upon-seclusion instruction.
- There was some evidence supporting Trotti’s claim, including her use of a personal lock and disputed notice of any search policy; therefore, rendition for K-Mart was not warranted.
- The actual-damages submission was erroneous because it allowed separate awards for “embarrassment” and “mental anguish,” creating a risk of double recovery.
- Because liability and actual damages were submitted in error, exemplary damages also required retrial.

## Legal Principles

- Intrusion upon seclusion requires an intentional intrusion into another’s private affairs that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.
- Jury instructions on intrusion upon seclusion must include the “highly offensive” element; omission is reversible error.
- An employee may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an employer-provided locker when the employer permits a personal lock and lacks the means to open it, particularly where notice of searches is absent or disputed.
- Damage submissions must avoid overlapping emotional-injury categories that may compensate the same harm twice.
- Exemplary damages depend on a proper finding of liability and properly submitted actual damages; charge errors may require retrial of punitive damages.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the jury was not instructed to decide whether the locker search was highly offensive to a reasonable person and because the damages questions risked duplicative recovery, even though evidence could support an employee’s privacy expectation in a personally locked workplace locker.


K-Mart Corp. Store No. 7441 v. Trotti, 677 S.W.2d 632 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1984)