Legal
In December 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint against Girls Gone Wild, on behalf of the FTC, alleging that the company failed to notify customers when they purchased subscriptions under a continuity program, rather than single DVDs. In July, 2004, the claim was settled for $1.1 million and agreed to disclose all terms and conditions and get written consent for recurring charges.
In September, 2006, MRA Holdings, a Girls Gone Wild marketer, pled guilty to federal charges for failing to record ages of women filmed in 2002 and 2003. The parties agreed to pay $2.1 million in restitution and fines.
In April 2008, Ashley Dupré filed against Joe Francis with other defendants, claiming that they filmed her without consent. Dupré dropped the suit after Francis released footage of her consent.
In 2008, a Missouri woman claimed that she was filmed without consent when a Girls Gone Wild contractor removed her halter top at a St. Louis bar. A jury found that she consented. On re-trial in 2012, a judge awarded the woman $5.77 million after the defense failed to show at court. Girls Gone Wild included this recording in one of the videos that it sold. On appeal, the judge upheld the verdict.
In March, 2008, four women claimed that they suffered emotional distress by being shown in Girls Gone Wild film. In April 2011, an all-female jury declined to award damages to the plaintiffs.
Read more about this topic: Girls Gone Wild (franchise)
Famous quotes containing the word legal:
“It has come to this, that the friends of liberty, the friends of the slave, have shuddered when they have understood that his fate was left to the legal tribunals of the country to be decided. Free men have no faith that justice will be awarded in such a case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)