A Cartersville woman whose photo was used without her permission in ads for a racy video can sue the producers of the “College Girls Gone Wild” series, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Lindsey Bullard was a 14-year-old Powder Springs middle-schooler when she was stopped by a man holding a video camera as she walked down the strip in Panama City, Fla., on spring break in 2000. When the man asked her to step into a nearby parking lot and expose her breasts, Bullard complied and was given a beaded necklace in return.
The cameraman later sold the video for “Girls Gone Wild, College Girls Exposed” and a photo of Bullard exposing her breasts was put on the cover and used in TV commercials aired nationwide. The phrase “Get Educated!” in block letters was placed across her breasts to shield them from view on the cover, but a five-second clip of Bullard exposing herself is on the video.
Bullard sued the “Girls Gone Wild” production companies in 2004. Her case is pending before a federal judge in Atlanta, who asked the state Supreme Court if Bullard had grounds to sue under Georgia law.
On Thursday, the state Supreme Court answered that she has such grounds.
The men to whom Bullard exposed her breasts never indicated to her that they worked for or had any intention of giving her image to a company that would produce and sell the “College Girls Gone Wild” videos, Justice Harold Melton wrote.
In a prior interview, Bullard, who is now 26 and married with a newborn daughter, said she was humiliated in high school by fellow students, coaches and teachers who had seen her “College Girls Gone Wild” photo on TV commercials. She accused the production companies of exploiting her for making a poor decision at the time by exposing herself to a cameraman.
Bullard did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.
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