Invasion of Privacy in Sports

Invasion of Privacy in Sports Introduction Do we even have any privacy anymore? With todays fast paced, never ending social networks and media outlets, it seems that nothing could get through its grasps. Invasion of Privacy is described as â€Å"A reasonable expectation of privacy involves an intentional or negligent highly offensive intrusion into the plaintiffs private life and resulting in damages to the plaintiff' (Mulrooney ; Styles, 2012, p. 13). In sports there are several ways in which athletes or sports fgures privacy could be invaded. The question is, is it Invasion of Privacy, or did they simply Just feel violated?Description of Invasion of Privacy Every individual has a right to his or her own privacy. When they feel that right has been violated, it becomes an issue of what a reasonable person believes is an invasion of privacy, and whether or not it caused damages to the person. A reasonable person has to base their opinion on Judgment calls instead of basing them on a mandated set of rules or guidelines. There are different situations for every intrusion, with no set guidelines to follow, but â€Å"a reasonable expectation of privacy is used to determine aspects of a plaintiffs life that would be deemed private† (Mulrooney ; Styles, 2012, p. ). An intrusion does not have to include physical contact either, but must cause damages to the plaintiff. Posting a picture of an underage child may cause â€Å"Emotional distress or mental anguish [and] is sufficient cause for damages and therefore the plaintiff does not need to prove and special damages† (Mulrooney ; Styles, 2012, p. 13). Four Elements Invasion of Privacy includes four elements of Public Disclosure. The first is that â€Å"defendant must disclose private facts that are highly offensive† (Mulrooney ; Styles, 2012, p. 13-14).Unless they are not considered offensive to a reasonable person, here is no case to begin with. Second, the public should have no interest or reason to know the information that was made public. Personal matters are a shaky issue. Depending on your status in the public eye depends on how a reasonable person views you. If you are celebrity, athlete, or politician, more than likely anything that happens in your personal life will get out in public and will not be considered an invasion of privacy because of the status of the individual in the general public.On the other hand, let us take an everyday citizen, who may have some kind of medical condition. If their doctor tells the media about it, they would have a legitimate case of invasion of privacy. There is no reason for the public to know, and it may have been highly offensive to the individual. Thirdly, the defendant must be wrong for their intrusion on the plaintiffs privacy. If we stick with the sick patient and the doctor, the doctor had not right for telling anyone about his patient's medical condition. The doctor has a right to not disclose of his patients information to the public, no matter how bad the patient may be.Last, the act or information brought forth must have aused damages to the plaintiff, whether it is physical or non-physical. Although the doctor may not have harmed their patient physically, it would have caused emotional distress. Defenses Consent, the main to detense to invasion ot privacy, is a very â€Å"watery' detense. There are three types of consent, but without all the details the defense may be weak. Express consent is based on written or oral communication, apparent consent is when a reasonable person believes consent has been given, and implied consent (Mulrooney ; Styles, 2012, p. ). If all the information is not provided, consent may be ithdrawn before anything is written up about a case. A second defense is newsworthiness. The media can say that almost every story or publication is newsworthy. However, the plaintiff can claim that their â€Å"image is not being used for commercial gain (Mulrooney & Styles, 2012, p. 1 4). The last defense to invasion of privacy is the unauthorized use of a person's likeness. Taking a person's name or company's logo, using it to advertise, and gaining a profit from is illegal and the plaintiff will be rewarded damages.Street vendors for sporting events are a perfect example of this. They sell t-shirts before and after the game outside of a stadium. The t-shirts may have the name of the city, say Cleveland, but not the name of a team or their logo. If they used their name or logo, it would be considered using the likeness of that organization, and taking away profit from their organization in merchandise sales. Problem it Creates for Sport Managers Looking at how invasion of privacy is structured, those in sports can have a lot of problems with it.As stated above, it becomes a Judgment decision by a reasonable person on whether one feels they were violated or not. Being a coach or one working n the sports field, you have to be wary of any incidents it may cause or put you in with others. As a coach, you may be a responsible person, but who says your team will be. Look at the Duke Lacrosse team. They ended up having to forfeit their entire season, and the coach got fire due to a false rape charge. The alleged rape was at a Duke party where the entire was at (Kwak, 2006). The media and fans play a big role in it.If a player has a bad game, they can get bombarded and lambasted by the media and fans in more ways than one. Not only directly after the game, it's at every press conference, before and after every practice, n every sports network, on every sports website, and so on. That's Just the media. The fans can take to social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and harass them that way. They can also visit the player's house, send them letters, emails, or call them. The damages done here could be classified as invasion of privacy and emotional distress, depending on what occurs.Current Situation Future Trends Case 1: Bilney vs. The Evening Star Details The 1977 Maryland men's varsity basketball team had to deal with an act of Invasion of Privacy regarding four of their players and the media. In Bilney vs. The Evening Star, basketball players John Bilney, Larry Gibson, Jo Jo Hunter, and Billy Bryant were named in editions of the Washington Post, Washing Star, and the Diamondback, telling of their poor grades and academic probations. With their grades brought out in public, the student-athletes made the decision to sue the publishers ot the newspapers and the writers involved.