A lawsuit has been filed against SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc., the Orlando Sentinel and several other media outlets by a woman from Texas who claims they disseminated her private phone conversation against her wishes.
In the suit, the woman said that in 2010, SeaWorld “purchased a video recording of a ‘personal and sensitive’ phone conversation” between herself and her longtime friend, SeaWorld employee John Hargrove. The suit claims that the phone conversation was recorded without her knowledge and sold to SeaWorld for a “large sum of money.”
The video in question shows Hargrove “drinking and repeatedly using a racial epithet during a recorded cellphone conversation.” Hargrove then left his job at SeaWorld before appearing in the critical documentary Blackfish. After he published a book that was also critical of the company, SeaWorld released the video to the Orlando Sentinel, who posted it online and in their newspaper.
The woman is seeking “damages for wiretapping, public disclosure of private information and intentional infliction of emotional damage.”
News source: Orlando Sentinel
