Photographer Being Sued By Model

Photography related stories have been a bit spares lately, and I've been a little busy.  I will post on any story that catches my eye if I get the chance.

That being said, this one caught my eye today over at PetaPixel:


Help: I Am Being Sued for Nearly $500,000 by a Model I Photographed!

You'll need to head over to PetaPixel for the details, but I'll post my response here.


The model's case against the photographer appears to rest on a supposed oral agreement between the two of them.  The problem for the model is that she signed a model release allowing the photographer to use the images in the way the photographer used them  (uploading to a stock images site for sale). Her case rests on an oral agreement that the photographer denies making, that being an agreement that the images would not be used for certain purposes, primarily related to porn.

The photographer states he would not have made that promise as there was no way for him to ensure the promise was kept.

Quickly skimming the complaint results in contradictory statements made by the model.

Paragraph 37) declares that the model release included an integration and/or merger clause.  The following paragraph states that is did not contain such a clause.

The inclusion of such a clause is extremely important in this case.  The clause states that the written document includes all the terms agreed to by the parties.  This specifically excludes any terms not put in writing and included with the contract.

An integration or merger clause would prevent the model from suing based on an oral agreement.


I suspect that there is no integration clause in this case.  It does not appear to be included in any standard model release form available on the Internet.

It might be time to include one.


The photographer is currently raising funds for his legal defense.

He apparently did have liability insurance, but the company is refusing his attempts to get them to fund his legal expenses.  (This is from the comments on the PetaPexel story.)


Two things to take away from this story:

1)  Liability Insurance is only as useful as the Insurer's reliability.  Insurance with a company that refuses to pay out is worse than no insurance at all.  You're out premiums in addition to any other losses

2)  Standard contracts are not necessarily the best way to go.  In this case, modifying the contract to exclude oral agreements might be a good idea.