January 12, 2024

Garrabrants v. Erhart

Defendant, a bank auditor, suspected the bank’s CEO was violating regulatory requirements to avoid paying taxes.  Defendant gave regulators the CEO’s personal data, and the CEO sued for invasion of privacy, among other claims.  The CEO prevailed and defendant appealed.

The Court of Appeal reversed, in part because the jury instructions misstated the law on invasion of privacy.  The court concluded that the instructions “invaded the province of the jury” because they implied that an individual has an “unconditional expectation of privacy in the financial information they provide to banks.”  Instead, the jury was required to determine whether the CEO’s expectation of privacy was reasonable based on the facts of the particular case.  Here, the error was prejudicial because a jury reasonably could have concluded that since the CEO was not merely a customer, but a bank officer, he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in financial information possessed by the bank.