The moral of this story is that if you choose to take nude photos of your wife with your phone camera, you should be careful about where you leave your phone:
A man is suing McDonald’s after he left his mobile phone at one of the chain’s restaurants and nude photos of his wife ended up online.
The suit was filed on Friday against the chain, the franchise owner, and the store manager, and seeks a jury trial and $US3 million in damages for suffering, embarrassment and the cost of having to move to a new home.
The suit says that Phillip Sherman left the phone in the Fayetteville, Arkansas store in July and that employees promised to secure it until he returned.
Obviously, if it can be proven that the store employees downloaded the photos and put them on the web, then their actions were wrong. But then the question is whether that can be sheeted home to the store manager, the franchisee and the chain.
I wonder what the cause of action is. I’m guessing it would be negligent failure to adequately supervise. I suppose it depends on what the chain’s guidelines with respect to lost items are, and how well they were enforced by the store in question. I also wonder whether damages can be reduced by contributory negligence principles? Definitely embarrassing for poor Mrs Sherman!
12 Comments
Did he get the phone back?
I think so, although the article is short on detail.
Employees might have promised to secure it, but it may have been compromized before that, and besides, it might have had bluetooth enabled and unsecured in which case anyone with a laptop in the place might have been able to get to it… without actually touching the phone.
Good point Dave. I wonder if they have evidence as to who posted the photos on the Net?
Isn’t that why they invented Polaroid cameras?
Well, yes. One would think so. Or download the photos and print them out…or SOMETHING… other than leaving them on your phone…
Hmmm, what is the cause of action? I suppose there is a trespass if the phone is accessed. And how about remoteness of damage?
$3mil seems a lot, I bet playboy doesn’t pay that much.
Ah, I should have thought about trespass. My property law brain has obviously atrophied with pregnancy.
I would think they’d be lucky to get $3M. I’m not quite sure either why Maccas should pay for them having to move house? That definitely seems too remote to me.
How do their neighbours know they she’s posted on the internet any way? I don’t imagine that sort of thing gets posted with name and contact details, so what are the odds their neighbours saw it anyway? Yes, do you really need to move home if your neighbour learns that sometimes you are naked and, shock!, your husband looks at you then.
Well, indeed. I wouldn’t know if there were nude photos of my neighbours on the Net – it’s not something for which I would go searching. Nor is it something about which I would be particularly interested, even if I found out there were such photos.
Well posting someone’s photos on the Net is very bad manners. I’ve actually found (and returned) three mobile phones this year. I thought it rude to even look at the bloody photos!
Still I don’t see what McDonald’s has to do with this. If you’re going to put personal material (esp someone’s else’s) on your phone you better not lose the bloody thing.
Yeah if I found a phone I certainly wouldn’t look at the photos! Most rude.
My phone mainly has photos of the roof and floor taken by my snap-happy daughter who doesn’t really have a concept of aim yet.