An Orange County Superior Court judge today refused to dismiss a lawsuit by a Ladera Ranch family against the California Highway Patrol over grisly accident photos leaked onto the Internet.
The police agency has admitted responsibility for images that circulated worldwide of Nicole “Nikki” Catsouras, 18, killed Oct. 31, 2006 in a two-car crash on the 241 toll road near Lake Forest.
At a hearing in Santa Ana, Judge Stephen L. Perk said the CHP potentially could be held liable for the actions of its employees. No trial date has been set.
The hearing did not address two individuals named as defendants, Thomas O’Donnell and Aaron Reich. The lawsuit identifies them as CHP employees who played a role in causing images of the decapitated Nikki, still strapped into her father’s Porsche, to be posted on more than 2,500 Web sites.
Lesli Catsouras, Nikki’s mother, said she is happy with the judge’s ruling but upset that the CHP continues to fight the lawsuit.
“They are doing everything they can to wiggle out of taking responsibility for this mess,’’ she said. “They have the authority and the resources to clean up this mess that they made, and yet they still have done nothing to help us.’’
The CHP has a longstanding policy of not commenting on pending litigation.
Attorneys for O’Donnell and Reich, whose specific roles in the alleged leak were not detailed in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit follows the Catsouras family’s unsuccessful $20 million legal claim against the state. It details the anguish suffered by Nikki’s parents and three little sisters, including fake MySpace.compages set up after her death and “spam” that popped up in the e-mail baskets of her parents, with attached photos of her corpse.
Accident photos are taken by police agencies but are meant only for investigative purposes. It is against CHP and state law to distribute them publicly.
Nikki was killed last Halloween when she took the keys to her father’s Porsche and sped away, just before she was scheduled to see a doctor. She had been at home and not feeling well.
The night before, her father, Christos, had taken away the keys to her car to discipline her.
Nikki had never driven the Porsche 911 before and was going about 100 mph on the toll road when she clipped a car, sped out of control and slammed into an unmanned toll booth.
The driver of the other car was not seriously injured. Nikki had not been drinking and no drugs were found in her system.
Keith G. Bremer, an attorney for the Catsouras family, said he’s comfortable with Perk’s ruling.
“The CHP is going to take potential responsibility for the acts and errors of its employees, and that’s what we want,’’Bremer said. A settlement still remains a possibility, he added.
In his ruling,Perk dismissed seven other causes of action in the complaint, including violation of federal civil rights, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
The single cause of action that remains in the lawsuit is “vicarious liability,’’ part of the government code section of state law.
The lawsuit alleges that O’Donnell, Reich and other CHP employees either removed the images from an evidence locker or failed to submit them in violation of agency policy and released, e-mailed or transmitted “several graphic and horrific photographs” to the general public.
Nikki’s parents both havestumbled across the ghastly images of their oldest daughter, but none of Nikki’s little sisters have seen the images.
A few weeks after Nikki’s death, a person sent an email to Christos Catsouras with the subject line “Woo Hoo Daddy,” according to thelawsuit. He opened it and the message said, “Hey Daddy I’m still alive.” Embedded in the email werephotos of Nikki’s corpse.
A few days ago, Lesli Catsouras ran across a video on the Internet that at first appeared to be a tasteful memorial to her daughter.
Then an image of a decapitated Nikki popped up.
“I think we’re all learning that how the Internet works,” Lesli Catsouras said. “Once something is out there, it never can be taken back. The Internet is our modern-day Tree of Knowledge – for good and for evil.’’
The Catsouras family marked the one-year anniversary of Nikki’s death on Halloween by visiting, for the first time, the accident site. Later, they visited Nikki’s grave at Pacific View in Newport Beach.
Danielle Catsouras, 16, now the oldest Catsouras girl, said she has lost many of her friends since her sister died. Someone threatened to post pictures of Nikki in her locker at Tesoro High School in Las Flores, so she stopped going to school.
Danielle is being home-schooled.
“She still doesn’t know who would want to hurt her,’’ her mother said.
Contact the writer: ghardesty@ocregister.com
