Calif. Highway Patrol Pays $2.37M to Settle Family's Suit Over Grisly Internet Photos of Dead Teen
In a settlement of a precedent-setting case that established a right to file an invasion-of-privacy suit over published photographs of the dead, the California Highway Patrol has agreed to pay $2.37 million to the family of a teen who died in a Halloween 2006 car crash.
Grisly photos of the disfigured body of 18-year-old Nicole “Nikki” Catsoura in her father’s mangled Porsche can still be found on the Internet today, and her family avoids the Web for that reason, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The publication of the photos, which were leaked by CHP dispatchers, resulted in harassment of her surviving family members, the article says. An Orange County Superior Court judge originally dismissed the case, finding no cause of action, but was reversed by the 4th District Court of Appeal, which for the first time said such a suit might be viable.
