Kobe Bryant Widow’s Suit Over Crash Photos Can Head to Trial

Kobe Bryant’s widow can proceed with a lawsuit alleging the County of Los Angeles improperly shared photos of the basketball star and her daughter after they died in a helicopter crash two years ago, a federal court said Wednesday.

Judge John F. Walter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California said there were genuine issues of material fact as to whether the county acted negligently and invaded Vanessa Bryant’s privacy, in denying the county’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.

“For the reasons stated in Plaintiff’s Opposition, the Court concludes that there are genuine issues of material fact for trial,” Walter wrote in the order. Bryant in her filings pointed to video evidence and the results of an internal investigation conducted by the sheriff’s department, among other things.

In the complaint filed in October 2020, Vanessa Bryant alleged several sheriff’s deputies at the crash site used their cell phones to take pictures of the former Los Angeles Lakers player and other crash victims “for their own personal gratification.”

Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven other people were killed in the Jan. 26, 2020 accident, when a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter, flying in cloudy conditions, crashed into a hillside near Calabasas, Calif.

Graphic photos of Gianna and Kobe Bryant’s remains were passed around “on at least twenty-eight LASD devices and by at least a dozen firefighters,” Bryant told the court in December, referring to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The county argued, though, that Bryant’s claims allege a “hypothetical harm.” The photos have never been publicly disseminated, the county said.

Munger Tolles & Olson LLP represents Bryant. Miller Barondess LLP represents the county.

The case is Bryant v. County of Los Angeles, C.D. Cal., No. 20-cv-09582, 1/5/22.