Can a libel action be brought against a newspaper publisher on behalf of a plaintiff and her minor children?

[166 Cal.App.3d 1136] The present case is governed by Kapellas v. Kofman, supra, 1 Cal.3d 20, 81 Cal.Rptr. 360, 459 P.2d 912. There the plaintiff, a candidate for the city council, sued a newspaper publisher on her behalf and on behalf of her minor children based on publication of an editorial which allegedly criticized plaintiff's qualifications as both a candidate and a mother by pointing out that her children were the frequent subjects of police reports. The complaint contained three causes of action: libel against plaintiff, libel against her children, and invasion of the children's privacy. Defendant demurred to each cause of action; the demurrer was sustained in its entirety without leave to amend and the action was dismissed. The judgment of dismissal of the first two causes of action was reversed, but the judgment was affirmed as to the third cause of action. The court stated that insofar as the claimed invasion of privacy rested on " 'the unwarranted publication by defendant of intimate details of [the children's] private [lives],' " it stated a cause of action separate and distinct from the libel claim; the court, however, held that the facts of the case did not support an action for "this kind of invasion of privacy." (Kapellas v. Kofman, supra, 1 Cal.3d at pp. 35-39, 81 Cal.Rptr. 360, 459 P.2d 912.) Most significantly in the context of the present action, the court added: "Insofar as the instant plaintiff's right to privacy action is of the 'false light in the public eye' variety, resting on the allegedly false nature of the editorial statements, we find the action is in substance equivalent to the children's libel claim.... Since the complaint contains a specific cause of action for libel, the privacy count, if intended in this light, is superfluous and should be dismissed." (Id., at p. 35, fn. 16, 81 Cal.Rptr. 360, 459 P.2d 912.)