## Facts

- Ralph Nader, an author and lecturer on automotive safety, had for years publicly criticized General Motors Corporation (GM) regarding the safety and design of its vehicles and planned to publish a book expanding on those views.
- After learning the book’s publication was imminent, Nader alleged GM authorized and directed a campaign to intimidate him and to suppress his criticism and disclosures about GM’s products.
- Nader alleged GM’s agents interviewed his friends, relatives, and acquaintances and questioned them about highly personal and unflattering matters, including his political, social, racial, and religious views; his integrity; his sexual proclivities and inclinations; and his personal habits.
- He alleged GM kept him under surveillance in public places for an unreasonable length of time as part of a continuing investigation.
- He alleged GM caused women to accost him to entrap him into illicit relationships.
- He alleged GM made threatening, harassing, and obnoxious telephone calls to him.
- He alleged GM tapped his telephone and, using mechanical and electronic equipment, eavesdropped on his private conversations.
- Nader sued asserting multiple causes of action, including two invasion-of-privacy counts based on substantially similar conduct occurring largely in the District of Columbia (first count) and also in New York (second count).
- GM moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The lower courts denied dismissal as to the first two invasion-of-privacy causes of action, and GM appealed by permission on the certified question limited to the legal sufficiency of those privacy counts.

## Issues

1. Whether Nader’s allegations—taken as true on a motion to dismiss—stated a legally sufficient claim for invasion of privacy under the intrusion-upon-seclusion theory (as recognized under District of Columbia law).
2. Whether alleged monitoring in public places and related investigative conduct can be actionable when paired with efforts to obtain confidential personal information through unreasonably intrusive methods.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the denial of GM’s motion to dismiss the first two invasion-of-privacy causes of action.
- Applying the pleading standard, the court accepted the complaint’s allegations as true and gave Nader the benefit of favorable inferences.
- The court treated the two privacy counts as alternative, not cumulative, claims because they were premised on the same general course of conduct.
- The court concluded that at least some of the alleged acts—such as telephone tapping and electronic eavesdropping, harassing calls, and attempted sexual entrapment—could constitute an intentional, highly offensive intrusion into private affairs under the governing privacy doctrine, and therefore the claims could not be rejected as a matter of law at the pleading stage.
- The court also indicated limits: not every investigation or observation is actionable, and public-place surveillance or routine inquiry may be permissible depending on what is sought and how it is obtained. A separate opinion illustrated the line by suggesting that following someone into a bank may be permissible, while trying to read what the person writes on a deposit slip may not be.

## Legal Principles

- Intrusion upon seclusion imposes liability when a defendant intentionally intrudes (physically or otherwise) upon another’s solitude, seclusion, or private affairs in a manner that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.
- The focus is on the means used to obtain information, not on publication of the information.
- Privacy is invaded only if the information sought is confidential and the defendant’s conduct is unreasonably intrusive.
- There is no invasion of privacy where the information sought is open to public view or has been voluntarily revealed to others.
- Observation of a person in public, standing alone, is less likely to be actionable; liability is more likely where the conduct goes beyond public observation and attempts to obtain private details through harassment, intimidation, deception, or electronic interception.
- On a motion to dismiss, the court does not decide whether the plaintiff will ultimately prove an intrusion; it decides only whether the pleaded facts, if true, could support liability.

## Conclusion

The New York Court of Appeals held that Nader’s complaint plausibly alleged intrusion upon seclusion under District of Columbia law where GM was claimed to have orchestrated a campaign aimed at extracting confidential personal information through surveillance, harassment, attempted sexual entrapment, and alleged wiretapping and eavesdropping; while the court recognized that ordinary public observation and nonconfidential inquiry are not enough, it allowed the privacy counts to proceed because the alleged methods could be found highly offensive and unreasonably intrusive.


Nader v. General Motors Corp., 25 N.Y.2d 560, 255 N.E.2d 765 (1970)