The associate professor and associate dean of Elon University School of Law shared analysis of a lawsuit filed against the sports broadcasting giant for publishing photos of an NFL player's injured hands.
Published in May, “Pierre-Paul Medical Docs Release May Be Trouble For ESPN” looks at the arguments made by New York Giants player Jason Pierre-Paul against ESPN and reporter Adam Schefter, who tweeted out hospital photos of the injury.
Pierre-Paul claims that by sharing those photos, ESPN violated medical privacy laws; ESPN claims the photos bolster their reporting on a highly public figure.
From the article:
“First Amendment legal expert Enrique Armijo of Elon School of Law said that while Pierre-Paul really cannot argue that the injury information was not newsworthy given his stature and the popularity of the NFL, his lawyers can push that like with Hogan, the dissemination of the actual records goes too far.
“Pierre-Paul “really can’t argue that there is no interest in him having suffered this injury, but like Hulk Hogan, he is trying to make a distinction in the fact and the lack of public interest in this particular image,” Armijo said, noting that Pierre-Paul will argue that this disclosure “crosses the line from public interest into a private fact, and therefore it is different.”
Armijo is an affiliate fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project, and he teaches and researches in the areas of the First Amendment, constitutional law, torts, administrative law, media and internet law, and international freedom of expression. Armijo’s current scholarship addresses the interaction between new technologies and freedom of speech.