Messenger v. Gruner + Jahr Printing and Publishing

Gruner + Jahr Printing and Publishing (Gruner) (defendant) published Young and Modern (YM), a magazine that targeted teenaged girls. YM published an advice column that contained a letter submitted by a 14-year-old girl who wrote that she got drunk with her 18-year-old boyfriend and his friends. The friends sexually assaulted the letter-writer and then taunted her, and she was ashamed. The letter and the editor’s response were illustrated with photos of a 14-year-old model, Jamie Messenger (plaintiff) playing the part of the letter-writer. Messenger consented to taking the photos, but her parents did not. One photo depicted Messenger being taunted by a group of boys. Other photos depicted Messenger feeling worried and sad. Captions on the photos urged the letter-writer to admit that she was at fault and to get a pregnancy test. Messenger sued Gruner in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Gruner used Messenger’s photos for trade purposes without authorization, violating the New York Civil Rights Law. Gruner moved for summary judgment, arguing that the newsworthiness exception exempted the advice column from the application of the New York Civil Rights Law because (1) the photos illustrated a newsworthy article, (2) the advice column was not an advertisement in disguise, and (3) the photos bore a real relationship to the advice column. Messenger conceded points one through three but argued that the newsworthiness exception was inapplicable because the context of the photos gave the false impression that Messenger was the letter-writer. The district court held that the newsworthiness exception was inapplicable and denied Gruner’s motion for summary judgment. The matter went to trial, and the jury found for Messenger, awarding her $100,000 in compensatory damages. Gruner, arguing that the newsworthiness exception barred Messenger’s recovery, appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which certified the following question to the New York Court of Appeals: when photographs of a plaintiff are used in a fictionalized way to illustrate a newsworthy article, may the plaintiff recover damages for invasion of privacy by commercial appropriation?