Nagy v. Bell Tel. Co. of Pa.

436 A.2d 701, 292 Pa. Super. 24, 1981 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3727
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 30, 1981
Docket979
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 436 A.2d 701 (Nagy v. Bell Tel. Co. of Pa.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nagy v. Bell Tel. Co. of Pa., 436 A.2d 701, 292 Pa. Super. 24, 1981 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3727 (Pa. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

LIPEZ, Judge:

This is an appeal by Robert and Lois Nagy, plaintiffs below, of the order of the trial court sustaining defendants’, The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania and Gerald Porto, preliminary objections to all three counts of the plaintiffs’ complaint. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

The facts of the case are adequately stated by the court below:

The individual defendant, Gerald Porto, is the estranged husband of Judy Porto, the wife-plaintiff’s sister. As a result of beatings administered by Gerald Porto throughout fourteen years of stormy marriage, Judy Porto was compelled to leave her marital domicile and keep her whereabouts secret for her own safety and protection. The wife-plaintiff kept in contact with Judy Porto by way of long distance telephone calls which she completed through defendant Bell Telephone’s communication system. Some time in October of 1978, the wife-plaintiff contacted an employee of Bell at its McKeesport office and requested that the records of the telephone calls made from the plaintiff’s telephone, including telephone numbers, not be disclosed to third parties. She received assurance from that employee, whose identity is unknown, that her request would be honored. With this assurance, the wife-plaintiff proceeded to call her sister several times during the months of October and November of 1978. Subsequently, the individual defendant, Gerald Porto, obtained the telephone numbers of calls made from the plaintiff’s residence, including the telephone number of his wife, Judy Porto, the wife-plaintiff’s sister. Again, this was obtained from an unknown employee of defendant Bell Telephone Company. The plaintiffs next filed this action.

*27 I.

The Nagys argue that the first count of their complaint states the causes of action against the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania (Bell) for invasion of privacy and for emotional distress resulting therefrom. To sustain a demurrer, we must find that 1) a cause of action not properly made out in the complaint; and 2) the plaintiff would be unable to state a proper claim even on a different statement of facts.

Our decision of this issue is controlled by Vogel v. W.T. Grant Co., 458 Pa. 124, 327 A.2d 133 (1974). In Vogel, our Supreme Court approved the Second Restatement’s definition of the tort of invasion of privacy:

One who gives publicity to matters concerning the private life of another, of a kind highly offensive to a reasonable man, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy.

Id., 458 Pa. at 130, 327 A.2d at 136, quoting Restatement, Second, of Torts § 652 D (tent. Draft No. 13, 1967). “The crux of the tort developed in these cases and described in section 652 D is publicity. Without it there is no actionable wrong.” Id., 458 Pa. at 130, 327 A.2d at 136. The Vogel court held that “notification of two or four third parties is not sufficient to constitute publication. Without publication, appellees have not established an actionable invasion of privacy.” Id., 458 Pa. at 133, 327 A.2d at 137 38. 1

In the case before us, the Nagys have alleged that information was disclosed to only one person. A fortiori, they have failed to make out a cause of action for invasion of privacy. The complaint also falls short of stating a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress, it being the law of Pennsylvania that liability therefor must be founded upon one’s personal observation of physical injury negligently inflicted by another upon a third person. Hoffner v. Hodge, 47 Pa.Cmwlth. 277, 407 A.2d 940 (1979); see Sinn v. Burd, 486 Pa. 146, 404 A.2d 672 (1979). Nor do we conclude *28 that disclosure, by a Bell employee, to a third party, of a telephone number called by plaintiffs is the sort of “extreme or outrageous” conduct on which recovery for intentional infliction of emotional distress may be predicated. See Jones v. Nissenbaum, Rudolph & Seidner, 244 Pa.Super. 377, 383, 368 A.2d 770, 773 (1976).

II.

The second count of the Nagys’ complaint is in assumpsit. It alleges that Bell was obligated by contract with the Nagys “not to reveal the telephone number of parties called by [the Nagys] to third parties.” The court below concluded that the Nagys should have taken this claim before the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), under the doctrine of primary exclusive jurisdiction.

For the purposes of this [issue], this Court may assume, without deciding, that the factual allegations in appellant’s complaint would, if proven, constitute an actionable claim. Whether these allegations are legally sufficient to state a cause of action is an issue that the court below did not reach because the court based its dismissal of appellants complaint upon [the] failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

Feingold v. Bell of Pennsylvania, 477 Pa. 1, 5 n. 2, 383 A.2d 791, 793 n. 2 (1977) (reh’g denied 1978).

In Feingold, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania “recognized .. . that the Courts of Common Pleas have original jurisdiction to entertain suits for damages against public utilities based upon asserted failure to provide adequate services, even though the subject matter of the complaint is encompassed by the Public Utility Law.” Elkin v. Bell Telephone Co. of Pennsylvania, 491 Pa. 123, 129-30, 420 A.2d 371, 375 (1980). The Feingold court held that

[t]he rule requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies is not intended to set up a procedural obstacle to recovery; the rule should be applied only where the available administrative remedies are adequate with respect to the alleged injury sustained and the relief requested.

*29 477 Pa. at 10, 383 A.2d at 795-96 (footnote omitted). The Court noted specifically that the plaintiff, who had sued for damages, could not have been made whole by the PUC and that, therefore, the administrative remedy was not “adequate and complete.” Id., Id., 477 Pa. at 10-11, 383 A.2d at 796.

In the case before us, the Nagys ask, in the second count of their complaint, for damages for breach of contract. Even though their claim that Bell was contractually obligated to them not to reveal to third parties the telephone numbers they called might be interpreted as one that Bell’s disclosure of certain telephone numbers constitutes unreasonable service, the PUC would have no power to award damages.

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Bluebook (online)
436 A.2d 701, 292 Pa. Super. 24, 1981 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3727, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nagy-v-bell-tel-co-of-pa-pasuperct-1981.