## Facts

- JoDon Romero committed an armed carjacking in Phoenix and led police on an approximately 80-mile high-speed chase, at times reportedly exceeding 100 miles per hour and firing at pursuing officers.
- A local Fox affiliate filmed the chase from a helicopter, and Fox News aired the footage live on a national program.
- Fox did not use its usual broadcast delay to permit cutting away from violent content; the live feed showed Romero shoot himself at the end of the chase, and the anchor apologized on air.
- Romero’s three minor children did not see the live broadcast; after hearing at school about a circulating “suicide video,” the two older boys searched online at home, found a clip of the broadcast, and recognized the person who shot himself as their father.
- The children’s mother, acting as their guardian, alleged the viewing caused severe trauma and emotional distress.

## Issues

1. Whether the First Amendment bars tort liability for negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional infliction of emotional distress based on a live broadcast depicting an unfolding police chase and a suspect’s suicide.
2. Whether a broadcaster’s decision to air graphic content without delay or editing can constitutionally support NIED or IIED claims by the suspect’s children who later viewed the video online.

## Decision

- The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).
- The court held the broadcast was protected speech on a matter of public concern and did not fit within any narrow category of unprotected expression that would allow tort liability.
- Because the First Amendment barred the claims, the court did not permit NIED or IIED to proceed even assuming the complaint sufficiently alleged emotional harm.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment limits state tort liability for truthful reporting on matters of public concern; liability may be imposed only within narrow, recognized exceptions.
- Coverage of a dangerous, contemporaneous police pursuit involving public safety is a matter of legitimate public concern entitled to strong constitutional protection.
- A suicide occurring at the end of an ongoing public chase, in view of law enforcement and visible from a news helicopter, may be treated as part of the news event rather than a private occurrence for purposes of constitutional analysis.
- Emotional distress torts cannot be used to impose content-based sanctions on protected news reporting; constitutional protection can bar NIED or IIED even if the pleaded conduct is characterized as negligent, reckless, or insensitive.
- Where the broadcast does not depict or identify the plaintiffs and is not based on intrusion into a private space or use of nonpublic death images, imposing liability for relatives’ distress from viewing the content would impermissibly burden protected press activity.

## Conclusion

The court held that the First Amendment foreclosed NIED and IIED claims arising from Fox’s live broadcast of a newsworthy police chase that ended with the suspect’s public suicide, even though the suspect’s children later encountered the video online and alleged severe emotional distress.


Rodriguez v. Fox News Network, LLC, 238 Ariz. 36, 356 P.3d 322 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2015)