Fired reporter can't sue over bikini footage shot by rival station, appeals court rules
A well-known television reporter in the Chicago area, who was fired after a rival station filmed her wearing a bikini near a swimming pool in a source’s back yard, doesn’t have a tort case against CBS News, the Illinois Court of Appeals has ruled.
Knowing that her source was a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Lisa Stebic, reporter Amy Jacobson of NBC 5 should have realized news media might be present on July 6, 2007, the day before a community search was planned. Likewise, it was apparent the less-than-secluded back yard might be filmed, a three-judge panel held.
Courthouse News reports that the opinion was issued last week; however, it appears to be much the same as a Sept. 30 decision (PDF) by the court.
Affirming the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to CBS, the appeals court also said Jacobson, because of her prominent role in covering the Stebic news story, was a public figure. Hence, because she could not prove actual malice or reckless disregard of the truth, her defamation claim failed.
An invasion of privacy claim lacked an adequate legal basis, the panel said, because Jacobson did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the back yard: The swimming pool area was visible from at least one neighbor’s home and the public sidewalk, and Stebic’s home was routinely surrounded by news media because of the high-profile story of his wife’s disappearance.
Jacobson, represented by well-known trial lawyer Kathleen Zellner, argued in the suit that she lost her job at NBC because of the way CBS presented the story. CBS had defamed her and put her in a false light, implying through its reporting and selective editing that she had a personal relationship with Stebic’s husband, Jacobson said.
The appeals court said it wasn’t clear that viewers would have formed this impression. “The plaintiff is shot from a distance, has a towel around her waist, and is seen primarily walking around talking on her cell phone,” Justice Thomas Hoffman wrote in the opinion.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Ex-NBC Reporter Sues Rival CBS Station for Airing Damaging Video”
