Legal News

Privacy suit against CHP over Internet "death images" revived

By Richard Binder

Reversing a ruling dismissing invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence claims, 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.

Nicole Catsouras was decapitated on Halloween in 2006 when the Porsche 911 she was driving at close to 100 miles per hour clipped another vehicle, tumbled over a median and smashed into a concrete tollbooth. The two CHP officers who responded to the scene allegedly e-mailed nine graphic photos of Catsouras? lifeless body to friends unrelated to their investigation the same day for ?shock value.? The photos spread to more than 2,500 websites on the Internet, and users sent the family taunting emails.

When Catsouras? family sued the officers and the CHP, Orange Superior Court Judge Steven L. Perk, finding no basis for a federal civil rights suit, dismissed. The appeals court, however, concluded that surviving family members do have a privacy interest, subject to certain limits, concerning the "death images" of a decedent.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 02, 2010 (boomark / email).