I have never been sued, but I have friends who have.  Two photographers and one attorney friends.  They seem to not ever worry about the SUE word.  They just say it's so common in the society that we live in even people in jail does it.


If you have or been close to hearing this awful scary word, how did you handle it.  I'm asking because I took some photos at a public place which were not on the radar list and my camera was looked at and my smart card was removed by security and the guy told me.  "You are so lucky, I might sue you but I won't this time." (New York wall Street and taxi cabs from the rear)


So, I guess we just live in a SUE society.  Should I be afraid from now on to go outside and take pictures at a public place?   Thanks.

Sean--it was a public place.  I was outnumbered (3) to one and they had guns.  This happened at night and I was taking time laspe exposures with a tripoid.  I guess if I had a small smartphone it might had happened without being noticed.  Although I am an African american male, I can't run as fast as I use to.

Thanks so much Mr. Sharpshot.  I made copies.--Oscar Williams.

I've been sued three times! Fun. Perhaps people are still touchy about folks shooting in the financial district. But more likely you were harassed there because you're black. I'm glad they just threatened to sue you and didn't do anything worse.

Was it because people didn't like what the photo was being used for?  How did you deal with it?  I can understand people suing if they trip over a tripod and break something but if they signed a model release or it's an editorial photo, do they have a case?

It sounds as if this security guard was just trying to intimidate you with a threat to 'sue', and it obviously worked. I believe someone can only sue you for damages of some sort, and being in a public place taking photos doesn't cause any damage to anyone, unless as Shelma said, someone were to trip over your tripod, etc.

You, on the other hand, could maybe bring charges for the theft of your smart card?!

I'm happy I don't live in the USA.

Never sued but stopped by anti-terrorist guys near Ministry of Defence in London gave my a ticket to say I'd been stopped and radioed for security check....nice chaps despite the sub-machine guns. Wouldn't go near somewhere like that in current climate. Been told off a few times by jobsworth security bods....not such nice people as they are only pretend.

I know in the UK you should not be asked to wipe your card...the logic being..

• If you haven't done any thing wrong then no one has the right to ask to wipe your card..
  
  if you had done something wrong then wiping the card is destroying the evidence..

That said if they have guns i wouldn't argue!

Quite a few years ago, I was at a live animal exhibition within a shopping center in Australia. There were various native animals roaming around in these enclosures. A security guard comes up and really gets stuck into me. He seems convinced that I was there to steal animals! All I was doing was walking around taking photographs. I even had my camera out when he approached me. He lectured me and gave me warnings etc and all of it was nonsense. He told me really sternly that: "If you try and get an animal out of here, I promise you - you won't make it." And telling me that I was being watched. He was talking to me non-stop in quite a fast-paced and serious manner - uttering all sorts of garbage. I had enough of that and walked out when he was in mid-sentence.

aaah the forum lawyer

the world has gone paranoid

I'm sure the bad guys would just use a mobile phone to take photos of places they want to attack.  The last thing they would do is use a big camera and a tripod.  So why isn't everyone taking photos with a mobile phone being reported to the police?  This is so crazy, it has to change at some point doesn't it?  I really miss the days when photographers weren't looked at suspiciously.  I do think at some point we need to take action to stop this happening.  It gets really tiring having to justify doing something that's legal and harmless because other people are so stupid.

I have not been sued in photography, but I have sad experiences with many court cases from my previous job as a business manager. In fact one court case is still open and might run another ten years, even though i already won the main case and nothing serious will happen to me.

The main problem with court cases is that they suck money, time and life energy out of you. You cannot just walk away from a court case if someone sues you, only the courts can end it.

Most cases were normal business cases, competitors suing us with fraudulent claims, me suing them for unfair trade practices or customers who won�t pay...etc..but I am also involved in an incredibly long drawn out court process, that initally started under my father in the eighties.

Unfortunately, our opponent inherited a huge amount of money soon after he retired and is now using this to get his revenge on the whole world.

He also imagines himself to be a lawyer and writes incredibly long arguments full of lies and distortions. But since the law requires that every point has to be refuted in detail, I end up spending hours and hours putting it all together. I have documents going back to 1982 and patents from 1890.

And I can�t throw anything away...because the case isn�t really finished.

I did learn a lot about legal stuff and can prepare things very well for my lawyer, but it feels like being forced to dance with a vampire.

And you can�t close it with money, he keeps saying he will spend the rest of his life suing all of us, especially his former best friend who was my business partner. And sadly he succeeded, his marriage was ruined over all the stress. But it is not enough, our opponent has vowed he will restart the court case again and again under a different angle.

He is driving everyone crazy, including the judges, but they can�t stop him either and he doesn�t care about losing all the money.

He is also a kind of stalker, at one point he and his wife apparently spent 5 days in their caravan parked close to my office to "observe" when me and the team come and go or have lunch. At the same time I was negotiating with his lawyer in Munich and he kept telling me his client was on holiday and couldn�t be reached...he was literally 20m away from us in a huge parking lot....we only found out on the last day...and he also does this with other people he sues. he calls it "collecting information" and tries to get into their offices...

My lawyers says, there are a group of people that just love to be in court, it is a very emotional form of entertainment for them. Especially if they can win just once, it can become a lifelong addiction. They collect the verdicts like prizes.

I don�t know what it is like in the US, but anyone being sued, you have my sympathies.