Famous excuses: “I didn’t know it was loaded.” “It’s not mine; I was just holding it for a friend.” “It was like that when I got here.” “Nobody told me that fast food could make me fat.” Oh, and this classic, beloved for millennia by authors, screenwriters, and trial lawyers alike: When I climbed upon the Girls Gone Wild tour bus and they filmed me taking my clothes off and having sex, I didn’t think they were going to use the footage.
That last one is the excuse that two Florida women are using in the lawsuit they filed against Girls Gone Wild this week for using their sexual antics in one of its Spring Break videos. (Well, yes, they did take off their clothes for the camera, but they didn’t think that GGW was going to sell the video. And they didn’t consent. Well, maybe they did, but if they did, they revoked their consent. Besides, they were drunk. And that’s the producers’ fault, because they gave these women alcohol.)
It’s not as if one should necessarily feel great sympathy for Girls Gone Wild — its founder, Joe Francis, seems to be a less-than-upstanding individual. But who’s more exploitive? The guy who films drunk people at spring break doing what drunk people at spring break always do? (And unlike in some cases of this type that we’ve covered, the plaintiffs were adults at the time of the filming.) Or the people who wait to see how much money he makes — according to the story, the video in question was published back in 2003 — and then charge to the courts to extract it from him with incredible claims?
(Previous Girls Gone Wild coverage: Aug. 2006 and links therein)
3 Comments
David, it’s revealing that your characterization of the plaintiffs’ arguments borders on a parody of the News Herald article. (Disclaimer: Yes, the press almost always succeeds in mangling every relevant detail of a legal story. But I don’t have anything else to go on here, and I gather you haven’t read the actual complaint either.)
You paraphrase the plaintiffs saying, in effect, “I didn’t think they were going to use the footage.” Isn’t it just a little relevant that they further claim that defendants made express representations to them to that effect? And aren’t you being disingenuous by strategically omitting this pertinent allegation?
You summarize a separate argument as “they didn’t consent [… w]ell, maybe they did, but if they did, they revoked their consent.” Here again, the article actually posits a materially different argument: not that there was a revocation, but that any “consent” obtained was not in fact valid by reason of intoxication.
Now, maybe the plaintiffs really are embarrassed, lying tramps trying to rip off an enterprising porn mogul. (The history of GGW & its currently incarcerated founder Joe Francis might suggest to reasonable minds that they aren’t exactly scrupulous about the law themselves.) But given that there is evidently extensive video/audio of much of the episode — and presumably a signed waiver, the wording of which ought to be instructive — is this really a harbinger of potentially ruinous and widespread litigation inimical to the public interest?
In any event, it is very much beneath you to twist the plaintiffs’ arguments (again, see caveat above). If you think their actual arguments are stupid or meritless — for all I know, you’re even more talented than Bill First & can draw legal judgments from a video you haven’t even seen — then by all means say so. But don’t set up straw arguments in place of the ones allegedly presented in a complaint. It demeans you & the blog.
Eck, Actually, I have read the actual complaint. And while I agree that I have mocked them (which was in fact my intent), I believe I captured every one of their arguments.
The fundamental point is that they were filmed taking their clothes off in the GGW tour bus, they knew this was happening, but they now claim to be shocked to find out that GGW used this footage.
Why are they shocked? They claim they were told it wouldn’t be used, which is ludicrous. (What did they think the cameramen were doing, testing their equipment?) They claim they didn’t consent. They claim that maybe they did consent, but if they did, it was invalid because they were drunk. And they claim that even if it was valid, they revoked their consent later.
As for them being “embarrassed,” I would think more highly of them if that were their claim. But I don’t believe that to be the case.
(1) For one thing, I’ve got to imagine that “Endless Spring Break – Volume 5” and “Endless Spring Break – Volume 6” probably don’t have long shelf lives, and by now GGW has moved on to promoting new videos.
(2) For another, they sued under their own names, rather than as Jane Does, thereby ensuring their names would appear in every article about the case and thus be known for all eternity.
(3) And third, they didn’t even seek to enjoin GGW from selling the videos. They just want their cut of the profits.
Furthermore, according to GGW: “While the women are being questioned, and signing their release forms, they are being videotaped. Burke said that footage is kept for occasions such as this when a woman’s state of mind, or sobriety, is at issue.”
If true, this means that their claims are provably false. In any sane legal system, as soon as the defendants turn that tape over to the court, not only would the case be over, but the plaintiffs would be liable for court costs, the defendants’ legal expenses, and other sanctions for frivolous lawsuits and perhaps perjury. But in our court system, it’s not a legally frivolous lawsuit because it’s a contest between two sets of evidence – never mind that there’s no way any reasonable person would take the plaintiff’s unsupported testimony over the videotapes of them giving sober and informed consent.