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Learn more. DOI: Stephen Bates. Melvin v. Reid and Sidis v. F-R Publishing are among the best-known cases involving the tort of public disclosure of private facts. Each arose over the disclosure of humiliating information from the plaintiff's pastβinformation once well-publicized but largely forgotten in the intervening years.
Gabrielle Darley Melvin sued a filmmaker for dramatizing her past as a prostitute who killed her pimp. William James Sidis sued the New Yorker for exposing his past as a child prodigy. Melvin won and Sidis lost. This article argues that, for a variety of reasons, both courts erred.
Archival materials, untapped by most scholars who have written about the cases, point to one factor behind the wrong outcomes: Both Melvin and Sidis withheld highly relevant facts from the courts. In a variety of ways, in addition, both courts misapplied the law. Citations 0. References ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication. A madam, a murder, a mystery: Exhuming Arizona's most notorious prostitute.
