Planomenal Industries

The Decline of Privacy

Is divorce by YouTube the new frontier in family law? One spouse tries it out
By Jocelyn Noveck, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - We're the YouTube Generation, living in the YouTube Era, in a YouTube World. And now we apparently have a YouTube Divorce.

Some prominent New York divorce lawyers couldn't think of another case where a spouse - in this instance, the wife of a major Broadway theatre operator - had taken to YouTube to spill the secrets of a marriage in an apparent effort to gain leverage and humiliate the other side.

"This is absolutely a new step, and I think it's scary," said Bonnie Rabin, a divorce lawyer who has handled high-profile cases. "People used to worry about getting on Page Six (the gossip page of the New York Post). But this? It brings the concept of humiliation to a whole new level."

In a tearful and furious YouTube video with close to 150,000 hits to date, former actress and playwright ("Bonkers") Tricia Walsh-Smith lashes out against her husband, Philip Smith, president of the Shubert Organization, the largest theatre owner on Broadway.

She goes through their wedding album on camera, describing family members as "bad" or "evil" or "nasty," and talks about how her husband is allegedly trying to evict her from their luxury apartment. She also makes embarrassing claims regarding their intimate life, and then calls his office on camera to repeat those claims to a stunned assistant.

Famed divorce attorney Raoul Felder, called for comment on the video, termed the whole thing "funny, but there's also sadness. This is a victim who is holding her head up. I think she comes off well."

Then again, Felder allowed that he is now representing Walsh-Smith - though he wasn't when she made the YouTube video.

As for Smith, his office said he had no comment and his lawyers said they didn't, either - "other than that we're kind of appalled."

"I don't think it's the kind of thing people should be doing, and it's the kind of thing judges frown upon," said Norman Sheresky, a partner in the matrimonial law firm Sheresky Aronson Mayesfsky & Sloan, which Walsh-Smith mentions in her video.

Asked if he had ever seen a spouse use YouTube to fire a salvo in a divorce battle, Sherefsky replied, "Jamais de la vie." (Translation: Never.)

Felder explained that his client was "acting out of passion." He also called the prenuptial agreement she'd signed with her husband, who is a quarter-century older than her, "stupid."

So why did his client sign? "Why do women sign these things? Love is blind, and sometimes it is deaf and dumb, too," Felder said. The video, he added, was the act of a powerless person, and "revolutions are made by powerless people."

Does that mean divorce-by-YouTube is a true revolution? Rabin, the matrimonial lawyer, sure hopes not.

For one thing, she said, this could come back to haunt Walsh-Smith. "Judges make decisions partly on (a person's) judgment," she said. "She could hurt herself with this." Not to mention the threat of a defamation case from the other side.

More broadly, she asks, where does it end? "Over the last few years we've had to deal with e-mails getting into the press, e-mails that nobody thought would end up as Exhibit A. But throwing your secrets onto YouTube for the whole world to see - and comment on! That brings it to a whole new level."

Or, in Felder's words: "There's no such thing as a private life anymore."

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Hospital in hot water over YouTube video of rectal surgery

Thu Apr 17, 3:45 AM

MANILA (AFP) - Staff at a Philippine government hospital are under investigation after a former patient threatened a lawsuit over a YouTube video clip of his rectal surgery, officials said Thursday.

The clip showed hospital staff, including nurses and surgeons, laughing and cheering as a blue canister was removed from the male patient's rectum during the January 3 operation at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Centre in the central city of Cebu.

Staff present during the procedure could be suspended or have their licences revoked if found culpable, hospital authorities said.

"There will be sanctions for sure," hospital spokesman Emmanuel Gines told GMA television in an interview, adding that the in-house inquiry would be completed shortly.

The unnamed patient told the station that he and his family suffered humiliation and ridicule when he was identified as the patient of the clip posted to the popular video sharing website YouTube and being passed around by cellphone users.

Gines said it appeared that a larger than usual number of people were in the operating room at the time and many of them taped the surgical procedure using their cellphones or other video recording devices.

A portion of the video aired by GMA showed medical staff giggling while filming the procedure with their mobile phones. It was not clear who posted the video to YouTube, and it has since been removed from the site.

Gines said the government hospital would review its operating procedures and possibly ban the use of cellphones and similar electronic devices during surgeries.

When contacted by AFP, hospital staff said Gines could not come to the phone to discuss the case.