Legal Question in Business Law in New York

I live next door to a factory. They built an 8 foot privacy fence next to the very back of my backyard that goes along the entire block of neighbors. I have a 6 foot fence on each side of my property as I have two small kids and small pets. Recently, one of the company tractor trailer drivers called the police on me when they saw the tail end of a toddler meltdown while looking into my backyard over this 8 foot "privacy" fence. I removed a water stick from my little girl as she was going to spray me ( she did this earlier in the day). I held it above my head and told her to stop being naughty and get her butt in the house. For the record, we do not hit our children. The next thing I know, the police are at my door and wanted to look at my child's back as someone called it in stating that I was beating my kid with a stick. (Obviously not true, and the police left no problem). While I believe in calling something in if you believe abuse is occurring, I don't believe my right to a reasonable amount of privacy should be violated because someone in a tractor trailer was peeping into my backyard over the 8 foot privacy fence... Do I have a case? Or just drop it? Thank you for any help you can give


Asked on 9/19/21, 7:35 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Richard Bryan Richard Bryan Attorney PC

This is a very interesting question as there are several issues in this fact pattern. I won't go through all of them though. Basically in this context when we speak about 'privacy', it refers to a person's 4th Amendment Constitutional right to not have the government (police) watching what you're doing. In this case an individual not employed by the government took a look over your fence, not the police.

As I said there are many nuances to this fact pattern, which are quite interesting and would take hours and hours to fully research and explain. Very interesting indeed.

Nevertheless as you've already concluded, I'm sure, there is no one to have a case against, and you should just let it go.

Good luck.

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Answered on 9/20/21, 10:06 am


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