Appeals Court: Family Can Sue CHP Over Release of Gruesome Photos
18-year-old Nikki Catsouras' died in a car accident on a Lake Forest toll road
By SCOTT WEBER
Updated 10:46 AM PDT, Tue, Feb 2, 2010
The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana has ruled that an Orange County family can sue the CHP for leaking graphic photos of their daughter's accident scene, according to the LA Times.
18-year-old Nikki Catsouras' died in a car accident on a Lake Forest toll road on Halloween 2006.
The suit, filed by Catsouras' father, mother and sisters, alleged that CHP Officers Thomas O’Donnell and Aaron Reich had e-mailed nine gruesome images from the accident to their friends and family members on Halloween—for pure shock value. Some images showed the woman's decapitated body, the Times reported.
"Once received, the photographs were forwarded to others, and thus spread across the Internet like a malignant firestorm, popping up in thousands of Web sites," the ruling stated. Shortly after, internet users began taunting the relatives with the images in "deplorable ways," the suit said.
The ruling reverses an earlier court's dismissal of the case.
First Published: Feb 2, 2010 10:28 AM PDT
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