Metropolitan News-Enterprise: Court of Appeal Revives Privacy Suit Over Death Photos on Internet in California
The Metropolitan News-Enterprise reports on Catsouras v. California Highway Patrol, a case (pdf) in California concerning privacy:
The Fourth District Court of Appeal yesterday revived a suit against two California Highway Patrol officers who allegedly leaked grisly photos of an 18-year-old Orange County woman’s death in a vehicle collision that circulated on the Internet, drawing taunts against her family.
Reversing a ruling dismissing invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence claims, Div. Three held that Nicole Catsouras’ family members had a common law privacy interest, subject to certain limits, in images of her mutilated corpse.
Justice Eileen C. Moore wrote that the officers and the CHP also owed the family “a duty of care not to place [Catsouras’] death images on the Internet for the purposes of vulgar spectacle.” [...]
On appeal, Moore noted that a decedent—not family members—holds any cause of action for invasion of privacy as to media discussing or portraying the decedent’s life. However, after examining cases from other jurisdictions, she concluded that surviving family members do have a privacy interest in the decedent’s “death image,” subject to limitations involving issues of public interest or freedom of the press. [...]
Justice William F. Rylaarsdam joined Moore in her opinion. Justice Richard M. Aronson concurred, but said he “would expressly limit any familial right of privacy in death images to photographs taken during an autopsy or for the coroner at a cordoned-off accident scene, and which serve no newsworthy public interest.”
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February 4th, 2010 at 12:53 am
Where it reads “a suit against two California Highway Patrol officers…” this is to inform everyone those “two officers” involved in this case (Thomas O’Donnell and Aaron Reich) are CHP dispatchers, not Officers.
February 4th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Thanks for commenting. Yes, they are dispatchers, but they are also designated “peace officers” in the lawsuit.