Vanessa Bryant’s lawsuit against Los Angeles County over photos of the helicopter crash site where her husband, Kobe Bryant, and daughter, Gianna Bryant, were killed is heading to trial.
U.S. District Judge Jon F. Walter rejected a bid to dismiss the case after he found that “there are genuine issues of material fact for trial.”
Vanessa sued the county for invasion of privacy and negligence after it was revealed that a sheriff’s deputy shared up-close photos from the crash site with at least 28 sheriff’s deputies and a dozen firefighters.
Her attorney, Luis Li, said:
This has always been about accountability.
We look forward to presenting the facts to a jury.
Skip Miller, an outside lawyer for the county, said in a statement:
The fact remains that the County did not cause Ms. Bryant’s loss and, as was promised on the day of the crash, none of the County’s accident site photos were ever publicly disseminated.
The case is headed to trial in February.
The state Legislature passed in 2020 a law barring first responders from snapping unauthorized photos of deceased people at the scene of an accident.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
