Defendant emailed three pictures, thinking he was communicating with two 14-year-old girls. But he was actually communicating with a police detective. And the pictures were not of defendant, but of plaintiff — a cop in a neighboring community. The pictures were not sexually explicit, but the accompanying communications were. Defendant had copied them from plaintiff’s Facebook page.
Plaintiff and his wife sued defendant under a number of tort theories. Defendant moved to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims for false light publicity and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court denied the motion.
It found that the false light in which defendant placed plaintiff through his conduct would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and that defendant had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the identity of the person in the photo, and the false light into which the plaintiff would be placed.
As for the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, the court found that: (1) defendant intended to inflict emotional distress or that he knew or should have known that emotional distress was the likely result of his conduct; (2) that the conduct was extreme and outrageous; (3) that the conduct was the cause of plaintiff’s distress; and (4) that the emotional distress sustained by the plaintiff was severe.
Defendant argued that his conduct was not extreme and outrageous. The court addressed that argument by noting that:
[Defendant] cannot do that with a straight face. The test is whether “the recitation of the facts to an average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor and lead him to exclaim, Outrageous!” . . . This is such a case.
Plaintiff’s wife’s intentional infliction of emotional distress claim survived as well. This was not, as defendant argued, an allegation of bystander emotional distress, such as that of a witness to an automobile accident. Defendant’s conduct implied that plaintiff was a sexual predator. This would naturally reflect on his spouse and cause her great personal embarrassment and natural concern for her own personal health quite apart from the distress she may have experienced from observing her husband’s own travail.
Dzamko v. Dossantos, 2013 WL 5969531 (Conn.Super. October 23, 2013)