A reporter employed by ABC obtained employment as a “telepsychic” with the Psychic Marketing Group, which also employed Mark Sanders in that same capacity. The reporter wore a small video camera hidden in her hat and covertly videotaped her conversations with several coworkers, including Sanders. The video was later included in an ABC program. Sanders sued the reporter and ABC for invasion of privacy by intrusion and for unlawful recording.
The recipient of many accolades including Legal Legend by The Hollywood Reporter, Neville Johnson has made a career out of representing victims of big media. In this case, he won for Sanders at trial, lost in the Court of Appeal, but then won again before the California Supreme Court, establishing a precedent that is a major foundation of privacy rights in general, and in particular, in the workplace.
Neville will talk us through the ups and downs of Sanders, and discuss newsgathering practices in the context of other privacy rights cases he has handled. His work in this field is perhaps best summarized by Professor David A. Elder, a leading expert on the law of privacy who was Neville’s co-counsel on Sanders, who wrote the following special dedication in his treatise, Privacy Torts: “To Neville L. Johnson… who has led the charge, often successfully (and always creatively and with great passion) in exposing some of the worst outrages of media newsgathering. Neville ranks with Brandeis and Warren as the great defenders of privacy. All America is in his debt.”
