Kobe Bryant's widow wins key court ruling in lawsuit over photos of human remains from helicopter crash

A federal judge on Wednesday made a pivotal ruling in favor of Kobe Bryant’s widow, rejecting a request by Los Angeles County to throw her lawsuit out of court and instead keeping it on track for a jury trial in February.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter denied the county’s motion for summary judgment and ruled that “there are genuine issues of material fact for trial.” Walter didn’t give a detailed breakdown of those issues, noting that the judge’s function is “not himself to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial.”

Vanessa Bryant is suing the county for invasion of privacy and negligence, accusing county sheriff’s and fire department employees of improperly taking and sharing photos of her dead husband and daughter after they and seven others died in a helicopter crash in January 2020.

If the judge had agreed with the county’s motion for summary judgment, her lawsuit would have been finished, pending any appeal.

“This has always been about accountability," Bryant's attorney, Luis Li, said in a statement Wednesday. "We look forward to presenting the facts to a jury.”

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The county says her lawsuit is without merit and recently asked the judge to dismiss it in summary judgment. It said the widow of the NBA legend never saw such photos, that the photos were deleted and that no photos were shared outside of county personnel except for when a sheriff’s deputy showed some crash-scene photos to a bartender at a restaurant two days after the crash.

The judge turned down this request, citing reasons stated by Bryant’s attorney in their opposition to the county’s request for summary judgment.

“Mrs. Bryant has gathered ample evidence of Defendants’ wrongdoing and the harm it has caused her,” said the document filed last month by Li. “The close-up photos of Gianna and Kobe’s remains were passed around on at least twenty-eight LASD devices and by at least a dozen firefighters. And that was only the beginning. The gratuitous sharing continued in the following days and weeks and included such outrageous conduct as flaunting the photos in a bar while pantomiming dismemberment and showing off the photos over cocktails at an awards gala… The callous and shocking behavior uncovered by Mrs. Bryant is more than enough to survive summary judgment.”

The county's outside counsel, Skip Miller, issued a statement after the ruling Wednesday.

“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling,” said Miller, partner at the firm Miller Barondess. “The fact remains that the County did not cause Ms. Bryant’s loss and, as was promised on the day of the crash, none of the County’s accident site photos were ever publicly disseminated. The County did its job and looks forward to showing that at trial.”

The judge's ruling also gives Bryant new leverage against the county if she is inclined to settle the case before trial.

The county previously agreed to pay $1.25 million settlements to two other families who lost loved ones in the same crash. They had filed similar lawsuits over the sharing of photos, but Bryant has not shown the same willingness to call off her lawsuit in exchange for a payment.

Her lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages to punish the deputy defendants and “make an example” of them to the community. She had gone to great lengths and expense to gather evidence in this case, including having nearly 30 electronic devices examined, taking dozens of pretrial depositions and serving over 100 written discovery requests to the county defendants, according to court records.

In a separate lawsuit last year, she and other families who lost loved ones in the crash reached an undisclosed settlement to end their wrongful death claims against the owner and operator of the doomed helicopter.

Her lawsuit over crash-scene photos now is expected to ramp up before trial with court battles over what evidence can be shown to the jury. The trial date is Feb. 22 in Los Angeles.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kobe Bryant's widow Vanessa wins court ruling in case over body photos