Nader v. General Motors Corp.
New York Court of Appeals
25 N.Y.2d 560, 255 N.E.2d 765 (1970)
- Written by Megan Petersen, JD
Facts
Ralph Nader (plaintiff) is an author and lecturer on automotive safety who sharply criticized General Motors Corp. (GM) (defendant) for years over the safety and design of its products. Nader planned to publish a book detailing his criticisms. GM learned of the imminent publication of the book, and planned a campaign against him to suppress his criticism and prevent his disclosure of information about GM’s products. As part of this campaign, Nader alleged that GM questioned his friends, relatives and acquaintances about highly personal and unflattering matters, kept him under surveillance in public places for an unreasonable amount of time, caused him to be trapped by women into engaging in sexual intercourse, made threatening and harassing phone calls to him, tapped his telephone and eavesdropped, and conducted a continuing and harassing investigation of him. Nader brought suit against GM for the tort of invasion of privacy. The trial court granted GM’s motion to dismiss on all but the first two counts of Nader’s complaint involving alleged invasion of privacy. GM appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Fuld, C.J.)
Concurrence (Breitel, J.)
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