two lawsuits against Girls Gone Wild (MRA Holdings LLC) [long]
Dr. Strangelove
Becky Lynn Gritzke is the plaintiff in Gritzke v. MRA Holdings LLC,
No. 2001-CV-00495 (N.D. Fla. filed Nov. 21, 2001) - filed after the
removal of Gritzke v. MRA Holdings LLC, No. 37 2001 CA 002241 (Fla.
Cir. Ct., 2nd Jud. Dist. removed Nov. 21, 2001).
2000 SWIMSUIT CALENDAR: FEATURING THE WOMEN OF F.S.U. [Florida State
University]
Miss September 2000: Becky Lynn Gritzke
http://www.campuscalendars.com/fsu/september.htm
GIRLS GONE WILD: SEXY SORORITY SWEETHEARTS VOLUME 1 & 2 [DVD]
http://images.dvdempire.com/gen/movies/42878h.jpg
(Becky Lynn Gritzke is on the left)
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Becky Lynn Gritzke is featured in footage that appears from
0:23:29 to 0:23:49 in GIRLS GONE WILD: SEXY SORORITY SWEETHEARTS (©
2000 MRA Holdings, L.L.C.). She's wearing a blue tank top that, with
both of her hands, she pulls right up to her shoulders, exposing her
fair-sized, extremely round breasts, which have pink areolae and small
nipples. There's a white man on either side of her, both of whom lean
in toward her to get a better view of her breasts. (It should be
noted that Gritzke isn't wearing any beads, but the two men are. The
footage apparently was shot on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, during
Mardi Gras 2000.) A few seconds after she pulls her top up, a black
man offscreen gently squeezes her left breast with his left hand
(which can be seen onscreen); after she pulls her top back down -
brushing his hand off of her breast in the process - she turns her
head toward him and exclaims with a grin, "Don't touch!" (Although a
dubbed version of the footage was used, it's clear that this is what
Gritzke is saying.) The scene fades to black as she walks forward and
to her right, still grinning (and still beadless).
Part of the footage described above is also included in GGW:
SSS's pre-title sequence, from 0:00:32 to 0:00:37. As well, on the
GIRLS GONE WILD: COLLEGE GIRLS EXPOSED/GIRLS GONE WILD: SEXY SORORITY
SWEETHEARTS 2-on-1 DVD, a vidcap of Gritzke from that footage appears
on the onscreen menu for the former (i.e., GGW: CGE).
GIRLS GONE WILD: SEXY SORORITY SWEETHEARTS (2000)
Running time:
0:45:12
Footage featuring Becky Lynn Gritzke:
0:00:32 - 0:00:37 (05 s.)
0:23:29 - 0:23:49 (20 s.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Knight Ridder/Tribune (KRT)
http://www.krtdirect.com/
Wednesday September 18, 2002
'Girl Gone Wild' may get her day in court
By James L. Rosica
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The case of a former Florida State
University student who exposed her breasts and unwittingly became a
"Girl Gone Wild" may go to trial in Tallahassee.
But the Girls Gone Wild video makers defeated a similar lawsuit
in Louisiana earlier this year, in which a judge ruled that women who
"flash" in public do not have to consent to being filmed.
Jury selection has been set for Oct. 7 in Becky Lynn Gritzke vs.
M.R.A. Holding and Mantra Films, producers of the Girls Gone Wild
video series, which features young women baring their bodies, usually
in public.
Gritzke, 25 and a one-time swimsuit calendar model, said she was
videotaped without her permission when she pulled up her top on New
Orleans' Bourbon Street at the 2000 Mardi Gras celebration.
The footage wound up in the Girls Gone Wild "Sexy Sorority
Sweethearts" video, which includes unrelated scenes of other women
performing sex acts, according to court documents. Gritzke's photo
also is on the cover and in nationally distributed ads.
She first sued in September 2001; the case now is in federal
court here, before U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle. Gritzke is
seeking more than $75,000 in damages, and an undisclosed cut -
estimated to be in the millions - of the profits from the video's
sale.
Her case now rests on two claims: That her likeness was used
without her permission, and that her appearance in the video has
unjustly subjected her to ridicule, embarrassment or disdain.
But the Girls Gone Wild team has wrapped itself in the First
Amendment, saying in court records that Gritzke's "removing her shirt
in public at the world famous Mardi Gras celebration... is certainly a
matter of public interest [and] publications of public nudity
generally are considered newsworthy."
Case law largely has not recognized a right to privacy in public.
But the courts have affirmed a person's right not to have his or her
image exploited commercially.
Gritzke's lawyers at first said she did not know she was being
taped because the video cameras were hidden. The tape featuring her
was shot by an independent cameraman who sold it to Girls Gone Wild.
But according to recent court filings, Gritzke asked the
cameraman, "What's with the light?" and he answered he was "making a
video."
That does not constitute consent, according to documents filed by
her attorney, Kelly Overstreet Johnson of Tallahassee. Johnson
declined comment to the Tallahassee Democrat, citing federal court
rules that discourage lawyers from talking about pending cases.
But Ronald E. Guttman, the Los Angeles-based lawyer for the Girls
Gone Wild producers, noted that a Louisiana judge tossed out a suit by
three underage women who were included on another Girls Gone Wild
video.
In that case, the women - two were 16 at the time and the third
was 17 - were drinking at a New Orleans club during Mardi Gras 1999
and showed their breasts to a cameraman.
In March, Judge C. Hunter King of Orleans Parish Civil District
Court dismissed the suit.
"They were consenting to the video and/or photographs taking
place," he said, according to a hearing transcript. "It seems like
they were pretty willing."
"When you do it on Bourbon Street or go into a club and do it and
you know there is an individual with a video [camera], certainly you
must expect that this is going to be shown all over the place," Hunter
said. "... They had the ability to say no." Hunter's decision was not
appealed, records show.
"I believe that Judge King's analysis in the Louisiana action is
indicative of how Gritzke's case ultimately will be decided," Guttman
said in a statement. "But we're ready to go to trial and we're
confident of a successful outcome, based on the facts and the First
Amendment."
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SOUTH FLORIDA: THE BUSINESS JOURNAL
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2002/08/12/story4.html
Friday August 9, 2002
'Girls Gone Wild' cases test Constitution
By Stephen Van Drake
A 17-year-old baring her breasts in public for a strand of beads
is a rite of passage and selling a videotape of it is protected by the
First Amendment, Miami lawyer Thomas Julin said.
"The practice has become so common and widespread that many
Americans regard it as nothing short of a tradition that passes from
generation to generation," Julin wrote defending his Hollywood,
Calif., soft-core porn clients, who make millions of dollars selling
videos of young women in various stages of nudity as "Girls Gone
Wild."
There is constitutional protection even if the University of
Central Florida coed - known only as Jane Doe in Orlando federal court
documents - never consented to her nudity being advertised and sold
internationally by Joseph Francis of Hollywood, who owns MRA Holding
LLC and MRA Video, said Julin, a shareholder in the law firm Hunton &
Williams.
The legal battle Doe started in October pits statutory and common
law rights of privacy against the First Amendment's freedom of
commercial speech.
The constitutional turf tussle may wind its way through the
appellate courts and reverberate nationally, remapping constitutional
privacy boundaries.
Fraud alleged
Doe alleged she had no clue that baring her breasts for beads
during Labor Day 1999 in her car on the way to the surf at Panama City
Beach would pump big bucks into MRA's coffers as a two-minute segment
of a "College Girls Exposed" video marketed on a Web site.
Doe sued MRA, claiming it commercially exploited and humiliated
her. She alleged MRA fraudulently induced her into the act, violated a
Florida privacy statute and portrayed her in a false light, linking
her to soft- and hard-core porn, according to court documents.
"College Girls Exposed," the video in which Doe's video clip
appears, is sold packaged with "Sexy Sorority Sweethearts," which
Doe's attorney, Joseph D. Tessitore of Orlando, said is more
explicit.
Doe seeks royalties, damages for humiliation and embarrassment,
plus punitive damages, he said.
"She should get a pop for each video MRA sold, and I understand
MRA sold more than a million with her on it," Tessitore said.
MRA also included Doe during a commercial that ran nationally on
the Howard Stern show and many cable stations, Tessitore said.
Florida law prohibits displaying publicly another's image or
likeness for "any commercial or advertising purpose" without the
person's consent.
But MRA, in its recent motion to dismiss Doe's suit, argued that
Doe tacitly consented to broadcasting her nudity as "an expressive
work, like a motion picture, that aims to entertain and inform."
Doe countered she could not consent because she was a minor.
Both sides agreed that MRA requires free-lance videographers to
state they are filming for "Girls Gone Wild" and get a written consent
stating that the woman shot is at least 18. The young women get a free
"Girls Gone Wild" T-shirt.
The company also contended in the suit that promoting and
advertising Doe in "Girls Gone Wild" is not a "commercial purpose."
Besides, Julin wrote, "Some condemn this phenomenon, but others
celebrate it as a rite of passage of youth that has its roots deeply
embedded in history."
Julin referred to practices during New Orlean's Mardi Gras
celebrations, spring breaks and on the world's various beaches.
But beads for photography on Bourbon Street may prove pricey for
MRA.
Florida State University business major Becky Lynne Gritzke
flashed her breasts for beads during last year's Mardi Gras. In
January, she sued MRA in Tallahassee federal court after learning that
she also was included in a video. In March, she defeated MRA's bid to
dismiss her suit that mirrors Doe's. The case is still pending and a
trial date has not been set.
Julin did not defend MRA against Gritzke. But he said U.S.
District Judge Robert L. Hinkle's ruling not dismissing the case
missed the mark, ignoring well-settled law.
That remains to be seen as Doe and MRA this month filed written
arguments with U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway. Julin said he is
hopeful that Conway will repeat history and rule as she did on May 9
in "The Perfect Storm" First Amendment case.
The perfect legal fight
In May, Conway dismissed a suit launched by heirs of crewmen
aboard the ill-fated Andrea Gail that sank in October 1991 during a
severe storm.
All crewmen were lost at sea. After news stories and a
best-selling book, "The Perfect Storm" by Sebastian Junger, Time
Warner Entertainment released the movie, "The Perfect Storm," in June
2000.
In August 2000, various heirs of dead crew members sued Time
Warner in federal court in Orlando. They alleged "unauthorized
commercial appropriation of plaintiffs' likenesses" and invasion of
privacy.
Time Warner moved to dismiss. Conway agreed. "The court's
statement makes it clear that merely using an individual's name or
likeness in a publication is not actionable under Section 540.08,"
Conway wrote.
That Florida statute is the same law Doe is relying on.
Conway also ruled that promotion and advertising of the picture
did not constitute a commercial purpose. But she relied on common law
that could potentially keep Doe's door to relief open.
"However, if the name or likeness is used solely to attract
attention to a work that is not related to the identified person, the
user may be subject to liability," Conway wrote.
Enter MRA's ads on the Howard Stern show.
In "The Perfect Storm" scenario, Conway found no evidence that
plaintiffs' names or likenesses were used to "directly promote" the
movie.
Unlike the crew of the Andrea Gail, Jane Doe is alive. And
concerned. She has temporarily quit college and enlisted in the U.S.
Coast Guard.
"My client's an adult now," Tessitore said. "While it's stupid
and she shouldn't have done it, she didn't know it [the video clip]
was going to be sold worldwide. Free speech is not an unlimited
right."
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