Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Paul Schiemer asks: Let's say a photographer steps into a scene hoping to depict action in a truthful manner, simply reporting tragic circumstance as newsworthy. A mother pleads with the photographer, "I don't want a picture of my boy in your paper" ....in that terrible condition -bent, broken, bleeding (nobody really wants their last image of a loved one to be a horrific rendition like that). Photographer is insistent that his intentions are pure and altruistic; goes ahead and shoots his pictures, and the photo runs. Does the mother have grounds to sue the photographer and the paper because of the pain and suffering she endured (after the fact), and would the photographer and paper be liable for running the photo without release or expressed permission? As a matter of fact; many persons heard the mother tell the photographer she did not want a picture of her boy in the paper (it would come out in our hypothetical court). It's an interesting legal point, one that has some bearing on the issue. ============ Gentlemen & Ladies: You must read Shulman v. Group W Productions, 18 Cal4th 200, 74 Cal. Rptr. 843 (1998). This is the state of the law in California on the subject. Justice Werdegar starts by writing: "More than 100 years ago, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren complained that the press, armed with the then recent invention of "instantaneous photographs" and under the influence of new "business methods," was "overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and of decency."' This was an action by two automobile accident victims (a mother and her son) against television producers that videotaped and broadcast a documentary rescue program showing plaintiffs' rescue and transportation to a hospital by a medical helicopter. The answer to Paul's hypothetical in California is that on these facts the mother loses the case. I believe this case will be followed across the US. In Paul's case there seems to be no intrusion, and no amplification of conversations. The Court notes that automobile accidents are by their nature of interest to that great portion of the public that travels frequently by automobile, and the rescue and medical treatment of accident victims is also of legitimate concern to much of the public. Likewise, the mother's appearance and words as she was extricated from the overturned car, placed in the helicopter, and transported to the hospital were of legitimate public concern. The court further held that plaintiffs could not state a cause of action for intrusion in violation of the right to privacy based on the mere presence of a camera operator at the accident scene and his filming of the events occurring there. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/S058629.PDF modified http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/S058629M.PDF Long, complicated, yet very important decision.