Friedman v. Martinez, 184 A.3d 489

Over 60 women sued after a janitor, Teodoro Martinez, placed hidden surveillance equipment in a women's restroom of a five‑story office building for an estimated six months to a year; police seized devices and ~8 hours of footage and found additional equipment at Martinez’s home.
Martinez was indicted but fled the country; discovery produced footage in which some plaintiffs identified themselves, but many could not be matched to the seized recordings.
Defendants moved for partial summary judgment as to 35 plaintiffs who could not show their images were in the seized footage; the motion judge granted dismissal for those plaintiffs.
Three plaintiffs later identified themselves in the materials and were reinstated; the others appealed the partial summary judgment.
The owner and property managers separately moved later for summary judgment arguing no duty to prevent the janitor’s unforeseeable intentional torts; that motion was denied and they cross‑appealed. The Appellate Division reversed the partial summary judgment for the dismissed plaintiffs and remanded.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether a plaintiff must prove her image was actually captured to maintain an intrusion‑on‑seclusion claim	Plaintiffs: No — showing device presence or reasonable inference of recording suffices; actual captured image not required	Defendants: Yes — survival of claim requires direct evidence (the plaintiff’s image) from seized recordings	Court: No — actual captured image not required; circumstantial evidence that a device was present while plaintiff used restroom suffices
Whether summary judgment dismissal was proper where discovery was incomplete / inferences available	Plaintiffs: Summary judgment was premature and failed to credit reasonable inferences from abundant evidence of systematic surveillance	Defendants: Plaintiffs cannot prove device presence without direct footage; dismissal appropriate	Court: Judge erred by not drawing reasonable inferences for plaintiffs; reversal and remand for further proceedings
Whether owner/manager had duty to prevent janitor’s actions (cross‑appeal)	Owners/Managers: No duty; janitor’s acts were unforeseeable and liability would be unreasonable	Plaintiffs: (implicit) owners/managers can be liable for creating or failing to prevent foreseeable privacy invasions	Court: Did not decide merits of cross‑appeal; left issue for future review after final judgment

Soliman v. Kushner Cos., 433 N.J. Super. 153 (App. Div. 2013) (discusses privacy right and intrusion tort elements)
Hennessey v. Coastal Eagle Point Oil Co., 129 N.J. 81 (1992) (adopts intrusion‑on‑seclusion tort standard)
Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520 (1995) (standard for summary judgment review)
Koeppel v. Speirs, 808 N.W.2d 177 (Iowa 2011) (intrusion tort actionable even without proof that private information was actually viewed)
Villanova v. Innovative Investigations, Inc., 420 N.J. Super. 353 (App. Div. 2011) (tracking device case distinguishing reasonable expectation of privacy)
Kohler v. City of Wapakoneta, 381 F. Supp. 2d 692 (N.D. Ohio 2005) (permitting inference of intrusion without direct recorded evidence)