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Update on Girls Gone Wild lawsuit

So a few years ago, Web Watch wrote about a woman who LOST A LAWSUIT AGAINST GIRLS GONE WILD regarding her appearance in a Girls Gone Wild video, even though she is on film saying “no, I will not do this”.

The jury said that there was “implied consent” just for Tamara Favazza being present in the bar where the filming was going on, regardless of whether she willingly removed her top on her own (which she did not do).

Girls Gone Wild: College Girls Exposed
Girls Gone Wild: College Girls Exposed

Web Watch would be remiss if we didn’t complete the story that continued from that original lawsuit.

Tamara appealed the verdict after the judge in the case indicated that while she may have been present in the bar, she was an “unwilling participant”.

During the retrial, nobody from the defense appeared.  The judge awarded Tamara $5.77 million dollars, which included $1.5 million in punative damages.  The bigger question is whether Tamara finally collected her judgement or not, as JOE FRANCIS HAD NOT PAID UP shortly after the case was heard.

So while Tamara came out the victor in her case against Girls Gone Wild, it may not be as easy a case for Lindsey Boyd, who is currently SUING GIRLS GONE WILD for filming her when she was just 14 years old.

As Lindsey has said in interviews, she doesn’t denying flashing the cameramen. She refers to the incident as a stupid split-second decision.

So the difference between Lindsey and Tamara’s cases could come down to that one fact.  While both girls were underage at the time their filming was done, in Tamara’s instance her top was forced off of her by a third-party. Tamara was not actively seeking out being filmed topless on her own.  Lindsey did agree to be filmed, even if she didn’t know for what purpose the video was going to be used.

And that may be the point of where Lindsey is going with her suit, as she’s suing for “misappropriate of likeness for commercial purposes”, rather than the more questionable use of underage imagery.  Why is this important? Because Girls Gone Wild has won cases in the past that involved filming girls who were under 18 simply because the jury determined that the victims were not forced in doing something they shouldn’t have done in the first place.

By taking the lack of permission for distribution route, there’s a good chance that Lindsey will prevail.

Whether she will be able to collect any awarded judgement — as Tamara discovered — that may be the bigger challenge.