Ethics Case 3,5

The National Enquirer is known as a gossip tabloid that focuses not only on the inside stories of celebrity lives but also contains articles on the odd and unusual. The National Enquirer contracts or pays individuals money for stories and pictures they can capture such as a celebrity at a bar drinking or going into rehab. Most of the information that is gathered or the pictures that are captured are unknown to the individual being photographed. In my opinion most of the gossip stories reported or written in the National Enquirer are just that, gossip.

It was unethical for the National Enquirer to try to avoid the lawsuit in the state of California. The writer and editor of the National Enquirer clearly published an article about an individual and made false attacks on the individual’s professionalism. The defendants could contest that there is a lack of personal jurisdiction but in the end they probably would lose. The company is located in Florida and there was a lack of personal jurisdiction but this would be when the long-arm statute would come into play. There was a minimum amount of contact within the state of California and although the National Enquirer and the writer of the article are non-resident, they did cause intentional emotional distress to an individual who is a resident of the state. Even though the National Enquirer is based out of Baton Rouge, Florida, the article was offered for sale to individuals in the state of California so the state was the place both for distribution of the article and also the emotional distress, defamation and invasion of privacy which would give the state of California proper jurisdiction over the suit. The National Enquirer cannot argue that they are not responsible for the circulation of the article in California. The article was intentionally written and the company knows that over 600,000 copies alone sell in the state of California which would give Shirley Jones complete rights to file suit in the state of...