On June 21, 2018, the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the right of publicity and right of privacy in connection with Barry Seal (“Seal”) and the movie titled “American Made”.  In 2014, Universal City Studios, LLC (“Universal”) entered an agreement to purchase the life story of Barry Seal from his surviving spouse and children of his third marriage (“Seal Defendants”). Thereafter, Seal’s daughter from his first marriage, Lisa Seal Frigon (“Frigon”), as the administratrix of the estate of Adler Berriman Seal, filed suit against Universal and the Seal defendants seeking to nullify the agreement and claiming violation of right of privacy, right of publicity and asserting other causes of action.  Frigon claimed the right to control the commercial appropriation of her father’s identify and public image.  In response, Universal and the Seal Defendants filed a peremptory exception of no cause of action seeking dismissal of the claims which was granted by the district court.

On appeal, the First Circuit affirmed the district court ruling concluding that the right of privacy protects the individual.  Seal’s right of privacy was held to be strictly personal, not heritable, and died with Seal.  Moreover, the Court found no right of publicity has been recognized under Louisiana state law.  The court cited Prudhomme v. Procter & Gamble Co., 800 F.Supp. 390 (E.D. La. 1992) in which a federal court noted the possibility of a civil action to enforce a right publicity being recognized in Louisiana. However, the First Circuit said it could not find where such recognition had occurred.  The Court noted that judicial decisions are not intended to be an authoritative source of law in Louisiana, but are secondary.  The Court concluded, “Hence, for us to hold jurisprudentially that a right of publicity exists would constitute an unwarranted intrusion into an area in which the legislature has not seen fit to act”.  It declined to supply a cause of action through jurisprudence that it concluded Louisiana law does not.

On January 18, 2019, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied the application for writ of certiorari.