<p>"I doubt she’ll want to put her name on it. "</p>
<p>Did you know laws can be named after you without consent? There was recently a big hullabaloo because a law was named after someone’s child and the parents were really upset about it but they would not change it. Completely irrelevant but interesting nonetheless! It would be pretty ironic if she managed to be compensated in this case only for a law about it to be named after her and put on public record anyway.</p>
<p>I did not know that - seems like written consent should be necessary to have yours or your child’s name on a law. There oughta be a law.</p>
<p>Is it just me or does this thread seem to be pretty split by the genders? It is very split in my household (dad and fiance side with the jury, myself, mom, and sister all side with the girl) and it kind of seems that way on here. Or is it just me/am I misinterpreting some of the CC genders? Lol</p>
<p>It doesn’t surprise me though.</p>
<p>I’m female… and I haven’t been taking a side so much as explaining how the law works.</p>
<p>What irks me is the conclusions people have made, based on a jury determination. The jury made a factual finding – they found that, in this case (and this case only), the plaintiff did not provide sufficient proof to them that her appearance in the video was non-consensual. It has nothing to do with any other cases - it does not establish a precedent – and it really isn’t different than any other case where consent or agreement is somehow an issue. </p>
<p>It’s simply a matter of witness credibility. People can exaggerate, mislead, and tell lies on both sides, male or female, plaintiff or defendant. </p>
<p>A 90 minute verdict, 11-1, is an indication that there wasn’t much disagreement in the jury room – so the lawyer in me doubts that it was all that close a call.</p>
<p>Also, FWIW, my experience as a lawyer was that women jurors tended to be much harder on women victims than male jurors – so you would probably be very wrong to assume that a bunch of male jurors railroaded some poor girl.</p>
<p>^ I wasn’t assuming anything about the jurors. I was simply referring to people on CC and people I’ve talked to. That’s all.</p>
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<p>My experience too, where the defense attorney does a good job of juror selection.</p>
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<p>The defense attorney did a good job if potential jurors with your experience and beliefs were not on the actual jury panel. The defense attorney wanted people who would think that a woman who really did not want her breasts exposed would have worn a bra. In fact, what the defense attorney was aiming for in jurors were people who could not even imagine ever being at the Rum Jungle or their 20 year old daughter being there, much less dancing “flirting with the camera.” </p>
<p>IMO if the woman had had pierced nipples, it might well have been unanimous for GGW. Juror selection attempts to seek out and select people with the personal bias and prejudices that favor the client. The quote from the forman indicates to me that he would have liked to add the perjorative “slut.” A moral judgment for sure, but that is what wins or loses a case like this.</p>
<p>I googled “st louis girls gone wild rum jungle” and found a blog where a female had posted about GGW in St Louis when it was happening. The Rum Jungle was the second St Louis bar where GGW had filmed. The female poster was lamenting that all she was hearing about was the “sea of boobs” from the first night and was surprised when a girl friend of hers informed her that she was going to Rum Jungle to get in on the “fun.” I imagine that the juror pool had a lot of people who had heard about GGW when it came to town.</p>
<p>The plaintiff’s counsel was left with trying to sell “you ought to be able to go to a bar and drink when you are 20 and work the camera while dancing among a sea of flashing girls and get $5 million for having 20 seconds of your boobs appear in a video when someone popped your top to expose your boobs since you weren’t wearing a bra, even though you saw a sign that said that you consented to the use of your image and you didn’t leave when the camera and flashing reached where you were dancing.” </p>
<p>Other posters have characterized this as assuming the risk of getting exposed. </p>
<p>It seems to me that this case was won/lost at the juror selection stage. Both attorneys had seen the tape and knew (or should have known) the type juror that would favor their client especially on an issue like implied consent. As other posters have said on different facts (and with different jurors), the result might have been different.</p>
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<p>Sure, for research purposes only; that’s what you tell your spouse when she innocently goes to google “St. Louis” and sees your previous google search :-).
*“But honey! I HAD to do research for College Confidential!” *</p>
<p>I’m female too and could argue either side, but I don’t have a problem with the jury’s findings. I said early on that the lesson from this is to not go to a bar where GGW is filming unless you want to be in the video. If girls get that from this verdict, that’s great.</p>
<p>No, it’s not great. Practical, yes, but not great. Another message that young women are not permitted to present themselves honestly in the middle ground between Marian The Librarian and Hilda The Ho. Anywhere in the middle means they’re consenting to be treated like dirt. The message SHOULD be that if you are going to treat a woman like dirt, you had better have a signed release and a contemporaneous blood-alcohol test to show she gave it knowingly and willingly.</p>
<p>Speaking of the releases … OK, so you’ve got a girl (none of OUR daughters, of course) at a GGW function and she’s fine with exposing herself for the video – in fact, makes it a point to. </p>
<p>If indeed GGW requires a consent / release form in order to use it, when does she sign it? Does she sign it right then and there at the party – and if so, wouldn’t that be invalid if she were drunk? Or do they collect info from her and get a form to her that she signs later on, presumably sober? </p>
<p>(And then you’ve got to wonder about the kind of girl who shakes off her hangover, opens her mail, sees a consent form from GGW and says, “Oh, okay, better sign this and send it off.” Talk about compounding one mistake with another … )</p>
<p>If the former, you’ve got to wonder why GGW apparently hasn’t had lawsuits from girls saying “Yes, I signed a consent form, but I wasn’t competent to do so and now that I’m competent, I retract my permission.”</p>
<p>Interesting that Fox News had some footage and aired their legal analysts’ opinions at the time the suit was filed. The ones who though the female had any case, thought it was weak and noted that GGW had settled a similar case. The other analyst thought that implied consent was present and you can watch the tape to see why.</p>
<p>[Jiggling</a> Boobs Equal Implied Consent Siouxsie Law](<a href=“http://siouxsielaw.com/2010/07/26/jiggling-boobs-equal-implied-consent-to-have-your-top-ripped-off-while-being-filmed/]Jiggling”>HugeDomains.com)</p>
<p>One additional note:
Do you suppose she went on the witness stand, and said this, in these words?</p>
<p>Obviously this woman lost because the video didn’t match her story. I’d have to see the video.</p>
<p>legendofmax–the link at #111 gets you some of the “before” footage.</p>
<p>That video isn’t anywhere near enough to imply consent. Maybe if she kept dancing afterwards. Actually, it’s outrageous. The hand that grabs her top is clearly a man’s hand, and looks like it belongs to the cameraman or someone standing right next to him.</p>
<p>She wasn’t even dancing outrageously or anything. She’s just buxom, and was wearing a low-cut top. If that’s what 11 jurors thought constituted implied consent, I’m disgusted.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS. From what I saw in that video, that was not consent. I don’t care how drunk/flirty the girl was. I suspect that at that point in time, she just kept dancing/smiling after being grabbed – leading the jury to assume it was consensual (if she didn’t continue dancing/smiling afterward, the footage likely wouldn’t have even made the cut! GGW isn’t going to sell footage of women being touched if they showed any hint of finding it all really offensive).</p>
<p>However, asking for $5 million is a big outrageous, too – not to mention the fact that she didn’t even bother pressing charges until the video was released. If she was so concerned over the sexual nature of the crime, why did she wait (with no indication that she was even going to press charges otherwise)? It isn’t like this is a rape case and some sort of shame/fear was involved regarding pressing charges. It seems like she only felt a sort of “gambler’s remorse” once the footage was made more easily accessible than she may have anticipated. While I agree that “no means no,” she was not under ANY sort of duress, and I feel a bit torn over this issue.</p>
<p>Personally, I think she should have won – but not for $5 million (again though I’d want to see the entire video). I don’t necessarily think she gave implied consent to have herself exposed, no matter how foolish she may have been for basically whacking a beehive with a stick and then getting upset for getting stung.</p>
<p>I’m frankly not surprised that she lost, but I do think both sides of the case can be argued.</p>
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<p>No shame?? Have you been reading the comments here? You know–the ones implying it was her fault for being at that location, her fault for not wearing a bra, her fault for wearing a top that’s “easily pulled down”?</p>
<p>How would she have proven her case when the guy said, “Oh, she’s a drunk girl overreacting, I just bumped into her” or “she pulled it down herself”? GGW would not have turned over its camera footage to help her prove her case.</p>
<p>This kind of thing happens all the time and a lot of times women shrug uncomfortably and let it go because it’s so hard to win, or because a lot of people don’t feel comfortable rocking the boat, or just don’t know what to do. Heck, look at DonnaL’s experience with a creepy guy on a bus.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link 07DAD. I just watched it and I am absolutely horrified by the comments from the legal analyst who thinks the plaintiff didn’t have a case. She said that the plaintiff was deliberately jiggling her breasts and this was the same as baiting the camera. She also said the small top she was wearing was a factor.</p>
<p>Can we just take a moment here to try to figure out what baiting the camera means. How do you bait a camera, it is an inanimate object. You can bait a person but not a camera. Since this report indicated that it was actually the cameraman who exposed her breasts maybe that is what she meant.</p>
<p>Oprah’s breasts used to jiggle when she was a runner and there were plenty of times the camera was filming her. Was she also baiting the camera?</p>
<p>I’m horrified. I can’t believe in this day and age it is OK to expose someone’s breasts and the distribute then resulting footage.</p>
<p>Naturally: No, I haven’t been reading the comments – but again, I don’t think it’s her fault for dressing a certain way or that her top was “easily pullable.” None of that justifies sexual assault of any sort. I don’t think we disagree on this point. What I meant by “shame” was that there was no reason why she couldn’t have pressed charges. </p>
<p>“How would she have proven her case when the guy said, “Oh, she’s a drunk girl overreacting, I just bumped into her” or “she pulled it down herself”? GGW would not have turned over its camera footage to help her prove her case.”</p>
<p>Waiting until they release the footage publicly seems to be a silly move. If she didn’t want the material airing, filing a complaint immediately would prevent this regardless of whether or not they “had the footage.” The only place she might have trouble with is if she filed for the sole purpose of being sexually mishandled, which wasn’t the case here since she didn’t act immediately and only fought back once the material aired (if we are to assume she “waited” so that GGW couldn’t withhold the evidence). The “shame” comment was regarding the fact that she was not under any duress. Usually, in rape cases, a woman may be hesitant to press charges out of fear or shame for what happened (e.g. they don’t want any more trouble from the rapist, don’t want the rape incident to become blown out in the open, the event was traumatizing, etc). This scenario is arguably much different.</p>
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<p>Eh, I bet that would be a turn-on to some potential GGW video customers.</p>