Opinion of the Court, per PECKHAM, J. [Vol. 147. regard to the Mt. Vernon Association contained in the circulars is the only ground for adverse comment in the newspapers, or for the disagreeable notoriety complained of by the plaintiff. If corrected all ground of complaint of that nature would disappear. If not corrected upon application,, the plaintiff would probably not be without a remedy which would prevent the circulation of such an untruth. The fourth ground of objection has already been disposed of in treating of the second. The feelings of the deceased, if she were alive and confronted with such a proposition to do honor to herself, have no place in this action, which is founded upon the alleged violation of the plaintiff's own right of privacy. The fifth ground is an equally vague and shadowy one. Whether Mrs. Schuyler sympathized with the work or the views of Miss Anthony we must say seems to us utterly foreign to the subject. There was no proposition looking towards the placing the statues of these two ladies together as representatives of the same ideas, or as in any way, even the remotest, united in the same works, or in inculcating the same principles in regard to the rights of women. The objection seems to rest wholly upon the proposition that these two proposed statues were to be exhibited in the same room of a building in the Chicago fair grounds-one as the representative of a class of women philanthropists and the other as the representative of a class of women reformers. The placing of the statues in the same room for exhibition by the same association does not in our view tend in the slightest degree to confuse the identity of Mrs. Schuyler, or to lead in any way to the supposition that she was in sympathy with or believed in the correctness of the principles which have been advocated by Miss Anthony. The fact, if it be a fact, that Mrs. Schuyler did not sympathize with what is termed the "Woman's Rights" movement is of no importance here. The proposed placing of the two statues would, if carried out, have had no tendency to show that Mrs. Schuyler did so sympathize. Many of us may, and N. Y. Rep.] Opinion of the Court, per PECKHAM, J. probably do, totally disagree with these advanced views of Miss Anthony in regard to the proper sphere of women, and yet it is impossible to deny to her the possession of many of the ennobling qualities which tend to the making of great lives. She has given the most unselfish devotion of a long life to what she has considered would tend most for the benefit and practical improvement of her sex, and she has thus lived almost literally in the face of the whole world, and during that period there has never been a single shadow of any dark or ugly fact connected with her or her way of life to dim the lustre of her achievements and of her efforts. Although we may utterly fail to sympathize with these efforts or achievements, it is plain enough that no one will have reasonable ground for objection to the placing of a bust of his or her own ancestor in the same room with the bust of such a woman and under such circumstances as were originally contemplated by these defendants. This ground of objection, however, time has itself rendered valueless. One other ground has been argued before us upon which to sustain this injunction. It was urged that the proposed statue would be a fraud upon the public because there was no portrait, likeness or statue of Mrs. Schuyler accessible to defendants from which any possible likeness of the deceased could be secured. The idea of an actual likeness was early abandoned, and it was stated that the statue would be an ideal one and not a likeness. The court below has not found any fraud and we are not of the opinion that any was shown. While not assuming to decide what this right of privacy is in D all cases, we are quite clear that such right would not be violated by the proposed action of the defendants. The plaintiff's cause of action is, we think, wholly fanciful. The defendants' contemplated action is not such as might be regarded by reasonable and healthy minds as in the slightest degree distressing or tending in the least to any injury to those feelings of respect and tenderness for the memory of the dead which most of us possess, and which ought to be considered as a proper subject of recognition and protection by civilized courts. D Dissenting opinion, per GRAY, J. [Vol. 147. It is, perhaps, needless, yet we will add that our decision furnishes, as we think, not the slightest occasion for the belief that under it the feelings of relatives or friends may be outraged or the memory of a deceased person degraded with impunity by any person who may thus desire to affect the living. The rights of such persons will remain the same after as they were before our present decision and will be wholly unaffected by it. We simply say that in this case the defendants have proposed to do nothing which ought to affect unpleasantly the mental condition of any sound, reasonable and intelligent man or woman, and, therefore, an injunction ought to have been refused. We have looked at the question of the appealability of the judgment, and are of the opinion that the court has jurisdiction. Nor do we think that the question is now merely an abstract one because of the fact that it was the intention of the defendants in causing the statue to be made to place the same on exhibition in one of the buildings at the Chicago exposition, now past and gone. That was only one of the purposes of the defendants. They intended to retain the statue after the exhibition and bring it back to New York and place it in the studio of the Ladies Art Association, a place which so far as the evidence shows is appropriate for the purpose. This intention is not illegal and might be properly carried out but for this injunction. EUpon the whole we are of the opinion that the plaintiff has made a mistake in his choice of this case as an appropriate one in which to ask for the enforcement of the right of privacy. The judgment must be reversed as to the parties appealing and the complaint dismissed as to them, with costs. E GRAY, J. (dissenting). I must emphatically dissent from the decision of this court that there was no ground shown in this case for the equitable relief which was granted below. That a precisely analogous case may not have arisen heretofore, in which the peculiar power of a court of equity to grant relief by way of injunction has been exercised, furnishes no N. Y. Rep.] Dissenting opinion, per GRAY, J. reason against the assumption of jurisdiction. This equitable jurisdiction of the court is determined by the particular circumstances of each particular case and depends upon the existence of a state of facts which demonstrates a wrongful act performed, or threatened to be performed, to the prejudice of some right of property and for which there is no adequate remedy at law. Upon the findings in this case, I think we are bound to say that the purpose of the defendants was to commit an act which was an unauthorized invasion of the plaintiff's right to the preservation of the name and memory of Mrs. Schuyler intact from public comment and criticism. As the representative of all her immediate living relatives, it was competent for him to maintain an action to preserve them from becoming public property; as would be the case if a statue were erected by strangers, for public exhibition under such classification, with respect to the characteristic virtues of the deceased, as they judged befitting. I cannot see why the right of privacy is not a form of property, as much as is the right of complete immunity of one's person. If it is a property right with reference to the publication of a catalogue of private etchings and entitled to be protected against invasion, as Lord COTTENHAM held in Prince Albert v. Strange, (1 Macn. & G. 25, 47), why is it not such with reference to name and reputation? We have some illustrations of the exercise by courts of equity of their peculiar powers in cases which have been cited, in principle not unlike this; where the publication of one's letters and the sales of photographic portraits have been enjoined, besides the case of the publication of the catalogue referred to. (See Gee v. Pritchard, 2 Swanst. 402; Prince Albert v. Strange, 2 De G. & Sm. 652; Pollard v. Photog. Co., L. R., 40 Ch. D. 345, and Woolsey v. Judd, 4 Duer, 379.) These decisions are authority for the doctrine that equity will interfere to prevent what are deemed to be violations of personal legal rights and the only limitation upon the application is that the legal right which is to be protected shall be one cognizable as property. It seems to me Dissenting opinion, per GRAY, J. [Vol. 147. clear that the jurisdiction of equity is not made to der nd upon the existence of corporeal property and that it is exercised whenever the complainant establishes his claim to the possession of exclusive personal rights and their violation in definite ways; for which an action at law cannot afford plain and adequate redress. That is the case here. The defendants were a voluntary, unincorporated association; whose object was to erect a statue of Mrs. Schuyler as the "typical philanthropist," and subscriptions were solicited from the public to create a fund for that purpose. It was found by the trial court that the acts of the defendants "have exposed the name and the memory of Mrs. Schuyler to adverse comment and public criticism of a nature peculiarly disagreeable to her relatives, and have caused disagreeable notoriety, for which they are in no way responsible." It was found that "annoyance and pain have been caused thereby to the plaintiff and to the immediate relatives of Mrs. Schuyler," to their great distress and injury, by the notoriety incident thereto. However opinions may differ with respect to the substantial nature of the injury to the feelings of Mrs. Schuyler's relatives, we have the finding that it was in fact caused, and we should not say that it was merely fanciful. The theory of the case, which calls for equitable relief, is not that of a mere protection to wounded feelings; but the protection of a right which those who represent the deceased have to her name and memory as a family heritage and which had not become the public property. Why is that not a legal and an exclusive interest and why are its possessors not entitled to be protected by the law from a notoriety which invites public criticism of the memory and reputation of the deceased relative? And if it be true that there is no known application at common law of the principle, does not that natural justice with which equity is synonymous require that equity supply the deficiency, or enlarge the operation of legal principles, and grant the shelter of the law to the name and memory of the deceased, at the instance of her relatives? The evidence does not establish that Mrs. Schuyler was a |