But suing a variety of “nontraditional defendants,” including the City of New York and the owners of the apartment building where the victim’s body was found, may not be a sure-fire formula for doing that. Among the defendants is Facebook, on which a paramedic improperly posted pictures of the victim’s body; while the pics were quickly taken down, the suit demands that Facebook take further remedial steps such as identifying who may have “downloaded” (i.e. viewed?) the images. [CNN]
4 Comments
Um, how exactly do these people (and more importantly, their attorneys) think that Facebook is going to “turn over” the photo in question, which was uploaded to FB by the paramedic? They concede that FB promptly removed the image from the site. FB has absolute immunity under federal law for images posted by its users. And again, how does one “turn over” a digital image uplaoded by somebody else?
Why isn’t the invasive, offensive posting of the photos not covered by the 8-1 decision in the Westboro Baptist case?
Even if Facebook, somehow, turned over the list of people who viewed the photo, what, exactly, would the plaintiff do with this information? Sue people for looking at a photo?
Certainly they should go after the paramedic and the paramedic’s company. A jury may be very sympathetic to them….
Well, if they aren’t careful, the Streisand Effect may catch up with the plaintiff’s/victim’s family….