I wanted to learn more about Intrusion Upon Seclusion and came across an interesting case--The Amy Boyer Case (Resmburg v. Docusearch, 1999). It started in July of 1999 when Liam Youens contacted Docusearch, an internet-based investigation and information service, and requested the information about Amy Lynn Boyer, a woman Youens had been obsessed with since high school.
Docusearch sold Youens Boyer's social security number and employment information. Docusearch obtained Boyer's work address by having a subcontractor, Michelle Gambino, place a "pretext" call to Boyer. Gambino lied about who she was and the purpose of the call in order to convince Boyer to reveal her employment information.
In October of 1999, Youens drove to Boyer's workplace and shot her to death and then he committed suicide. Amy Boyer's mother sued Docusearch and the private investigators that worked with Youens for wrongful death; invasion of privacy through intrusion upon seclusion; invasion of privacy through commercial appropriation of private information and others.
Intrusion upon seclusion occurs where there is an invasion, through conduct offensive to an ordinary person, of an individual's information in which a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy." Amy Boyer's estate argued that she had a reasonable expectation of privacy in her address and social security number, and that Docusearch's action in indiscriminately releasing this information was reasonably offensive.
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2 comments:
This is very interesting. Where did you find the case? Do you know what the court's findings were? This sounds like an intrusion case to me. I am sorry for the family.
Melissa Joy
I wonder how this company "Dousearch" could even have a business license after disclosing someones social security number and posing as another organization to retrieve work info...that has to be fraudulent. Thats scary....what was the name of the case?
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