## Facts

- Teresa Kroh repeatedly accused her husband, Thomas Kroh, of infidelity and secretly placed audio recorders and a video camera inside the marital home to record him without his knowledge.
- Teresa claimed the recordings showed Thomas having sex with the family dog.
- Teresa reported Thomas to government authorities, including the county department of social services (DSS) and the state bureau of investigation, and also told third parties (including Thomas’s sister, a long-time friend, and a coworker) that Thomas had sex with the family dog and had molested Teresa’s two minor sons.
- Thomas sued Teresa, asserting claims under electronic-surveillance statutes based on the secret recordings and asserting defamation claims based on the accusations.
- At trial, both minor sons testified that Thomas did not molest them.
- Teresa raised truth as an affirmative defense to the defamation claims but her audiotapes did not substantiate the allegations.
- Teresa offered veterinary records that she contended supported the bestiality allegation, but the trial court excluded the records for lack of authentication.
- The trial court entered summary judgment for Thomas on the electronic-surveillance statutory claims and, after a bench trial, found Teresa liable for slander per se and awarded compensatory and punitive damages.
- Teresa appealed, challenging (among other rulings) the electronic-surveillance summary judgment, the exclusion of the veterinary records, and the slander per se judgment.

## Issues

1. Does North Carolina’s Electronic Surveillance Act apply to a spouse’s nonconsensual audio/video interception or recording of the other spouse inside the marital home, and was summary judgment proper on those statutory claims?
2. Did the trial court err by excluding the veterinary records offered to support Teresa’s bestiality accusation for failure to authenticate them?
3. Did the trial court properly impose liability for slander per se based on Teresa’s accusations of bestiality and child molestation, including statements made to authorities in connection with suspected child abuse?

## Decision

- The court held that the Electronic Surveillance Act can apply to nonconsensual interceptions by one spouse of another in the marital home; the statute contains no categorical spousal exception.
- The court nevertheless reversed the summary judgment for Thomas on the electronic-surveillance claims because genuine issues of material fact precluded judgment as a matter of law, and it remanded for further proceedings on those claims.
- The court affirmed the exclusion of the veterinary records, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion because Teresa failed to authenticate the documents as required by the rules of evidence.
- On the slander per se claims, the court affirmed in part but vacated and remanded in part, concluding that the trial court’s judgment needed to separate actionable defamatory statements (such as unprotected accusations of bestiality made to third parties) from statements potentially subject to statutory protections for reports of suspected child abuse and to make findings consistent with those distinctions.

## Legal Principles

- A civil wiretapping/electronic-surveillance statute that broadly prohibits nonconsensual interception of protected communications applies according to its text and does not exempt spouses simply because the interception occurred in a domestic setting.
- Summary judgment is improper when material facts remain in dispute; the moving party must show entitlement to judgment as a matter of law on the record viewed in the nonmovant’s favor.
- Documentary evidence must be authenticated before admission; a trial court may exclude records when the proponent fails to establish that the documents are what the proponent claims they are.
- Slander per se includes oral statements that impute certain crimes or conduct widely viewed as shameful; such statements are actionable without proof of special damages when the per se category is satisfied.
- Truth is a complete defense to defamation, but the defendant bears the burden of proving the substantial truth of the allegedly defamatory statements.
- Statutory schemes requiring or encouraging reports of suspected child abuse can provide protection for good-faith reports to appropriate authorities; courts must distinguish protected reports from unprotected defamatory publication to others outside the reporting context.
- When a trial court’s defamation judgment aggregates statements that may be subject to different legal rules (protected reporting versus unprotected publication), appellate relief may include vacatur and remand for additional findings and reconsideration consistent with the correct legal framework.

## Conclusion

Kroh v. Kroh held that North Carolina’s Electronic Surveillance Act may reach a spouse’s secret in-home recordings of the other spouse, but factual disputes required reversal of summary judgment on those claims; the court also upheld exclusion of unauthenticated veterinary records and affirmed only part of the slander per se judgment while remanding for proper treatment of statements potentially protected as child-abuse reports versus unprotected defamatory accusations to third parties.


Kroh v. Kroh, 567 S.E.2d 760 (2002)