Bride sueing Photographer over crappy pictures?

[Sarah23]

I am writing a paper for a college class, and am needing to find out if this has ever really happened and stood up in court. I have looked and looked and looked for a case online but havent found anything!

Can a bride/groom sue a photographer over crappy photos? I guess it would be "misrepresentation" or something like that, but I can NOT find anything!

Anyone here know of a case? If you can find one I will love you forever!

 

[DeadEye]

I freind told me he saw such a case on one of those TV cort shows. ie. Peoples cort or Judge Judy or some such. I did not see the show myself.

 

[Alpha]

Yes. It happens all the time. Usually in small-claims court. I personally know plenty of guys who've gotten out of the wedding business after threats or actual suits. You're not gonna find a lot of high profile cases because I don't know that many, if any, make it up to the higher courts.

It's rare that someone would win a case because they didn't like the photos. There isn't even technically a breach of contract, since the contract doesn't specify the quality of the photos and that's a purely subjective thing anyway. No plaintiff could reasonably claim they didn't know the photos would be crap if they've seen samples of the photographer's work beforehand.

The only established cases I know of are when photographers actually breach contract by not materially providing what they said they would. An example would be the case of Florida v. Silky (http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/KGRG-6MPPCV/$file/Silky_Complaint.pdf).

Other common cases include publication rights, such as when a photographer posts photos from the wedding on their website to advertise and the clients don't like it. This generally boils down to matters of privacy rights. A selection from a case in michigan:

[A] cause of action for invasion of privacy was again recognized by this Court. Mrs. Pallas sued for the unauthorized publication of her photograph as part of an advertisement. The defendant moved to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action. The motion was granted. Mrs. Pallas appealed.

This Court found that the weight of authority in most jurisdictions considered an unauthorized publication of this nature an invasion of a person's right of privacy. This Court stated:

"The general rule (to which, of course, there are [401 MICH 95] exceptions) is stated thus in the American Law Institute's 4 Restatement, Torts, p. 398 § 867:

" 'A person who unreasonably and seriously interferes with another's interest in not having his affairs known to others or his likeness exhibited to the public is liable to the other.' " 322 Mich. 411, 416, 33 N.W.2d 911, 913 (1948). (Emphasis supplied by the Pallas court.)

Since 1948 Michigan has continued to recognize the right of the individual to privacy. Beaumont v. Brown, 401 Mich. 80, 257 N.W.2d 522 (Mich., 1977).

 

[passerby]

I was going to for once but he was too poor to even afford a DSLR. That snapshooter he used for the wedding was a cheapy one too. I guess the best kill would be by just walk in to his house and grab his laptop or desktop for the compensation, but that would kill him. Unfortunately no one back me up, they all said those were fantastic photos, while I saw them as plain flat.

But since everyone were happy with those photos - so I am happy also .
The story end with the participants acceptance.

Be happy.