White

Plaintiff brings this action for damages against the State of California and certain designated employees and agents thereof, acting through the Department of Justice, Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (hereafter referred to as Bureau), alleging that the Bureau negligently posted to plaintiff’s record, and negligently disseminated and published erroneous information relating to plaintiff. After plaintiff’s opening statement the court granted defendants’ motion for a nonsuit. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment.

There having been no objection raised to the statement of facts as set forth in defendants’ brief, we adopt the same as the true statement of facts herein.

Plaintiff was arrested, made a ward of the juvenile court, and placed on probation for grand theft auto in San Diego in 1939. As indicated by a 1951 letter from a Merced Police Department inspector, Robert L. Kellerer, in 1941 plaintiff had been identified from a photograph as the person who had passed a forged check at a Merced chain store. The photograph of plaintiff was obtained by Merced from the San Diego Police Department bearing its identification number 12356.

At some time after…

I dissent in part, concur in part. The issue is whether government officials in charge of files reflecting the personal histories of private persons are immune from damage liability created by their dissemination of false, defamatory information in their files after its falsity has been brought to their attention by an affected person. In my opinion, they are not immune.

This is a damage action, not one for injunctive relief. The defendants are the State of California and A. L. Coffey, Chief of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. The Bureau is a component of the Department of Justice, which is under the directorship of the State Attorney Gen *631 eral. I concur in that portion of the decision affirming the nonsuit won by Mr. Coffey, but believe that the nonsuit won by the State of California should be reversed.

Our nation’s current social developments harbor insidious evolutionary forces which propel us toward a collective, Orwellian society. One of the features of that society is the utter destruction of privacy, the individual’s complete exposure to the all-seeing, all-powerful police state. Government agencies, civilian and military, federal, state and…

Plaintiff brings this action for damages against the State of California and certain designated employees and agents thereof, acting through the Department of Justice, Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (hereafter referred to as Bureau), alleging that the Bureau negligently posted to plaintiff's record, and negligently disseminated and published erroneous information relating to plaintiff. After plaintiff's opening statement the court granted defendants' motion for a nonsuit. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment.

There having been no objection raised to the statement of facts as set forth in defendants' brief, we adopt the same as the true statement of facts herein.

Plaintiff was arrested, made a ward of the juvenile court, and placed on probation for grand theft auto in San Diego in 1939. As indicated by a 1951 letter from a Merced Police Department inspector, Robert L. Kellerer, in 1941 plaintiff had been identified from a photograph as the person who had passed a forged check at a Merced chain store. The photograph of plaintiff was obtained by Merced from the San Diego Police Department bearing its identification number 12356.

At some time…