Facts
- A Los Angeles radio station aired a summer promotion featuring a disc jockey driving a conspicuous car and periodically broadcasting his location and next destination.
- Listeners were promised a cash prize and brief on-air interview for being the first to physically locate the disc jockey and satisfy a simple condition.
- The promotion was designed to excite a large teenage audience and increase listenership and advertising revenue; broadcasts used urgent, competitive language.
- Two teenagers, driving separate vehicles, pursued the disc jockey across city streets and a freeway at high speeds and in an erratic, competitive manner.
- During the pursuit on the freeway, the teenagers’ actions forced another motorist’s car into the center divider, causing it to overturn and killing the driver.
- The decedent’s family sued the radio station and the teenage drivers for wrongful death; a jury returned a verdict against the radio station and one teenage driver for damages.
Issues
- Whether a radio station owes a duty of ordinary care to members of the motoring public when it conducts and broadcasts a contest that foreseeably induces listeners to engage in dangerous pursuit driving.
- Whether the teenagers’ negligent driving was a superseding intervening cause that relieved the radio station of liability.
- Whether imposing negligence liability for the promotional broadcasts violates the First Amendment.
Decision
- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment against the radio station.
- The station’s conduct in staging and broadcasting the contest was an affirmative act creating a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of physical harm to motorists.
- The teenagers’ negligent driving was not a superseding cause because it was a foreseeable response and the very hazard that made the contest dangerous.
- The First Amendment did not bar liability because constitutional protection does not extend to speech used as part of conduct creating an undue risk of physical injury.
Legal Principles
- A defendant who affirmatively creates a foreseeable risk of harm to others owes a duty of ordinary care to those foreseeably endangered.
- Foreseeable negligent conduct by third parties does not break causation; it is not superseding when it falls within the scope of the risk created by the defendant.
- Tort liability may be imposed for communications integral to dangerous conduct, including commercial promotions, without violating the First Amendment when the liability targets the risk of physical harm rather than viewpoints or ideas.
Conclusion
The court held that a broadcaster may be liable in negligence when a promotional contest foreseeably induces listeners to drive dangerously on public roads, that foreseeable third-party negligence does not supersede causation, and that the First Amendment does not immunize speech that materially contributes to an unreasonable risk of physical injury.