Court Case: Mrs. Dietz V. Finlay Fine Jewelry

1. What were the legal issues in this case? What did the court decide? This case is based on Mrs. Melissa Dittoe Dietz, who worked for Finlay Fine Jewelry since July of 1998. Mrs. Dietz sued the jewelry for invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. After the grant of summary judgment in favor of Finlay Fine Jewelry, Mrs. Dietz decided to appeal. The facts occurred after a customer wanted to purchase a diamond ring on sale for $1,439.20 and Mrs. Dietz did not knew how to process the transaction to the customer’s top account. After several failed attempts and because the frustration on both the customer and Mrs. Dietz, she decided to apply an extra 10% discount, without authorization, to the customer. Mrs. Dietz claimed that Mr. Bake, L.S Ayres security manager, took her to an interview room for fifty seven minutes where she was accused not only for the fact the she gave an unauthorized discount to a customer, but also of having a drug and alcohol problem, implying that she had taken missing pieces of jewelry, and of

Dietz’s invasion of privacy claim is based under the allegation that Mr. Baker disclosed personal information about her credit problem in front of Mrs. Camp, a sales manager, and Mr. Seufert, a security employee. In order to demonstrate that you suffered from invasion of privacy, you have to prove there was one of four distinct injuries, which are: intrusion upon seclusion, appropriation of likeness, public disclosure of private facts, and false publicity. (p.610) In this case, Mrs. Camp's presence was necessary as a female witness, since the security manager was a male, and Mr. Seufert was a member of the security staff. The court rejected the claim of invasion of privacy because a communication to a person or a small group of people is not actionable. Mrs. Dietz failed to show that the matter was disclosed to so many people that it was certain to become public