Couple Drop Novel ‘Spy’ Suit Against Nissan Corp. : Court: The company had been accused of planting an employee in their home to record apspects of their lives for commercial purposes.

An Orange County couple have dropped a novel lawsuit in which they claimed that Nissan Motor Corp. planted an automotive “spy” in their home to study the habits of middle-class Americans, attorneys said.

Stephen and Maritza French of Costa Mesa dismissed their lawsuit on July 26 because they did not want to endure the stress of pursuing the litigation, said their lawyer, Nancy Kaufman.

The decision was hailed by Nissan, which had denounced the lawsuit as groundless as soon as it was filed in Orange County Superior Court last December.

“I think this shows we were correct from the beginning, that this action was totally absurd,” said Don Spetner, spokesman for Gardena-based Nissan Motor Corp. U.S.A. “We resent and regret the negative publicity our employees had to endure as a result of this groundless claim.”

Noting the nationwide media coverage of the case, Spetner said he believes Nissan suffered unfairly because of its Japanese ownership.

“If we had been an American company or a Canadian company, this never would have gotten so much attention,” Spetner said. “There’s just a certain hype around the U.S.-Japan issue.”

Nissan has claimed from the start that Takashi Morimoto never deceived the French family and was “very up front” about why he wanted to rent a room in their house for six weeks last summer: he wanted to study English.

But the Frenches and their two daughters contended that he “intentionally misrepresented and concealed” the reason for his stay, and that his true agenda was to “spy upon them and to record and use every perceivable aspect of their private lives for the commercial purposes of Nissan,” the suit said.

Jon Anderson, Nissan’s lawyer, said Morimoto had indeed been conducting market research in several U.S. cities on the car-buying habits of the American public, but he did not study the French family while he stayed with them. He did not, as the Frenches claimed, scrutinize their behavior and scribble all his observations in notebooks, Anderson said.

The Frenches were first put in touch with Morimoto when they answered a newspaper advertisement seeking housing for Japanese students. They were told no students were available, but were asked if they would mind renting a room to Morimoto instead, the lawsuit said. Morimoto moved in June 16.

The family didn’t become suspicious until two months after Morimoto moved out, when they read an Oct. 2 article in the Los Angeles Times that detailed his work and the missions of other automotive emissaries like him. Feeling that they had been spied upon, the family filed suit.

Kaufman said the Frenches wanted to drop the complaint because the strain was proving harmful to Mrs. French’s health. Having to submit to lengthy interviews by Nissan during the process of evidence-gathering was too much to bear, Kaufman said.

“They were upset in the beginning that their privacy was invaded,” Kaufman said. “Having Nissan ask them so many questions was a further intrusion. It was more than they wanted.”

Kaufman said the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, which means it cannot be filed again later. Both sides agreed to bear their own costs and legal fees, she said.

In one court proceeding, the Frenches were ordered to revise parts of their lawsuit if it was going to withstand legal scrutiny, Kaufman said. But the key part of the complaint--the Nissan’s alleged behavior constituted an invasion of privacy--was left intact, she said.