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Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy

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The Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy is a controversy surrounding the leaking of photographs of Nicole "Nikki" Catsouras, a woman who died at the age of 18 as a result of a car crash after losing control of her father's Porsche 911 Carrera at high speed and colliding with a toll booth in Orange County, California. Photographs of Catsouras' badly damaged body were published on the Internet, leading her family to take legal action due to distress caused.

The accident

On the day of the accident, October 31, 2006, Nikki Catsouras and her parents ate lunch together. After lunch, her father left for work while her mother remained at home. About ten minutes later, her mother heard a door shut along with footsteps out the back door. As she walked toward the garage, she was able to see Nikki backing out of the driveway in her father's Porsche 911 Carrera — a car she was not allowed to drive. Her mother called her father, who began driving around trying to find his daughter. While in the car, he called 9-1-1 for help, apparently minutes before the accident, and was put on hold. When taken off hold, the dispatcher informed him of the accident.

Nikki was traveling north on the 241 Toll Road in Lake Forest at approximately 1:40 P.M., when she clipped a gray Honda Civic she was attempting to pass while traveling at an estimated 100 mph. The driver of the Civic was a 20-year-old man named Justin Thompson, of Rancho Santa Margarita. The Porsche flew out of control, crossed the toll road's broad median (which lacks a center barrier on that segment) and hit a solid concrete toll booth near the Alton Parkway interchange; the vehicle was instantly destroyed. Nikki died at the scene, while Thompson was taken to a hospital with "minor to moderate injuries." An autopsy revealed traces of cocaine in Nikki's body, but California Highway Patrol officers said that alcohol did not play a part in the accident.

Leakage of accident scene photographs

According to Newsweek, the Catsouras "accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn't allow her parents to identify their daughter's body." However, photographs of the scene of Catsouras' death were taken by California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers as part of standard fatal vehicle accident procedures. These photos were then forwarded to others within the Department, and then spread across the Internet.

Two CHP employees, Aaron Reich and Thomas O'Donnell, admitted to releasing the photos in violation of CHP policy. O'Donnell later stated in interviews that he only sent the photos to his own e-mail account for viewing at a later time, while Reich stated that he had forwarded the pictures to four other people. Catsouras' parents soon discovered the photographs posted online. The pictures had gained much attention, including in the form of a fake MySpace tribute website that actually contained links to the photographs. Griefers also anonymously e-mailed copies of the photos to the Catsouras family with misleading subject headers, in one case captioning the photo sent to the father with the words "Woohoo Daddy! Hey daddy, I'm still alive." This led to the Catsouras family withdrawing from Internet use and, concerned that their youngest daughter might have been taunted with the photographs, began homeschooling her.

Legal action by the family

The Catsouras family sued the CHP and the two officers allegedly responsible for leaking the photographs in the Superior Court of California for the County of Orange. Initially, a judge ruled that it would be appropriate to move forward with the family's legal case against the California Highway Patrol for leaking the photographs. The family hired ReputationDefender to handle their lawsuit. This led to the California Highway Patrol issuing a formal apology and taking action to prevent similar occurrences in the future, after discovering that departmental policy had been violated by the two officers responsible for the leakage of the photographs. O'Donnell was suspended for 25 days without pay, and Reich quit soon after, "for unrelated reasons," according to his lawyer. However, when the defendants moved for summary judgment, Judge Steven L. Perk dismissed the case against the Department of the California Highway Patrol after both Reich and O'Donnell were removed as defendants. Judge Perk ruled that the two were not under any responsibility for protecting the privacy of the Catsouras family, effectively ending the basis for the case. The superior court judge who dismissed the Catsouras' case ruled in March 2008 that while the dispatchers' conduct was "utterly reprehensible", there was no law that allowed it to be punishable.

On February 1, 2010, it was reported that the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District had reversed Judge Perk's grant of summary judgment, and instead ruled that the Catsouras family did have the right to sue the defendants for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Calling the actions of California Highway Patrol officers Thomas O'Donnell and Aaron Reich "vulgar" and "morally deficient," the court stated:

"We rely upon the CHP to protect and serve the public. It is antithetical to that expectation for the CHP to inflict harm upon us by making the ravaged remains of our loved ones the subject of Internet sensationalism. . . . O'Donnell and Reich owed the plaintiffs a duty not to exploit CHP-acquired evidence in such a manner as to place them at foreseeable risk of grave emotional distress."

The case is now being remanded to the superior court for further proceedings.

See also

References

  1. ^ Bennett, Jessica. "A Tragedy That Won’t Fade Away", Newsweek, 4 May 2009. (accessed April 26, 2009)
  2. Police, fire and court briefs from around Orange County, Orange County Register November 2, 2006. (accessed February 2, 2010)
  3. Alton Parkway Accident , Snopes 9 January 2007. (accessed November 8, 2009)
  4. ^ A Family's Nightmare: Accident Photos of Their Beautiful Daughter Released. ABC News.
  5. Full text of 2010 ruling from California Courts of Appeal
  6. Court: CHP Officers Who Put Teen's Decapitation Photos on Internet Were "Vulgar" and "Morally Deficient", OC Weekly February 1, 2010. (accessed February 2, 2010)

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