Pasadena Star-News v. Superior Court

In this mandamus proceeding, a defendant newspaper publisher seeks a writ compelling the superior court to grant its motion for summary judgment in an invasion-of-privacy case.

Petitioner published two newspaper articles about a newborn baby girl who was taken to a hospital and abandoned there. The first article reported that the baby, when only hours old, was brought to the hospital by a man who told nurses he had found her swaddled in newspaper and cradled in a cardboard box under the bleachers at a high school athletic field. According to the article, the man left the hospital without identifying himself, and authorities were seeking to identify and locate both him and the baby’s mother.

The second article, published eight days later, reported that both persons had been identified and located; the mother was a young woman who had concealed her pregnancy from her family and friends and accomplished the parturition at home and alone; her brother then took the baby to the hospital. This article said the mother reportedly wanted to relinquish the baby for adoption and would not be prosecuted because the baby was never placed in danger. Both the mother and her brother…