Claim against NBC of man wrongfully identified as criminal is summarily dismissed, as airing of false claim was merely an "annoyance" or "triviality"

Keith Todd was a little startled when his family and friends called him to report that NBC's "Dash Cam Diaries 3" had mistakenly shown footage of "him" being arrested as the perpetrator of a crime.  NBC had confused "Keith Todd" with "Todd Keith."  The program was aired twice before the network corrected the caption on re-airing to "regret" the network's mistaken identification of the wrong perp.    Todd, or is it Keith, sued the network and a limo service for defamation and the negligent infliction of emotional distress. The Court dismissed his claim summarily, holding that the statute of limitations expired one-year after the November, 2011 airing.    Todd, or Keith, asked to allege to assert an invasion of privacy, which would have been a timely claim, as the statute of limitations is three years.

The Court of Appeals held that the Court erred in failing to take into account the claim which carried a three-year statute of limitations, but nevertheless upheld the summary disposition, ruling that the network's false identification of plaintiff as a criminal was not "extreme and outrageous conduct."  The judges held that "while the conduct at issue may have been unpleasant and even disturbing"...it was "akin to 'mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities...' and was not "beyond all possible bounds of decency."  On that basis, the judges upheld summary disposition.