It would seem a couple in Arkansas are suing McDonalds for $3 million after nude photos of the woman ended up on the internet. The man, who accidentally left his cell phone at MickeyD’s, claims that the staff promised to secure the phone but neglected to do so.
Hmm – you send photos of your naked self to your husband who in turn leaves his phone somewhere, and the business owners/employees are irresponsible to the tune of $3 million?
I wonder if the managers and staff of that McDonalds could sue them for the emotional distress the couple’s irresponsibility caused them? It seems they both share the responsibility – I think McDonalds should have secured it if indeed they said they would, but… who was ultimately responsible?
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Any idea on the content or artistic theme in the photo’s?
OOooops, Sorry!
I cannot believe my last comment actually matters.
There is just no telling what wonders will transpire ‘neath the Golden Arches! If a McDonald’s employee had accidently dropped the pin head’s cell phone into the deep fat fryer the wife would probably be suing for unnecessary calories! If the pictures on the internet landed the woman a job offer with Playboy would the husband sue his wife for the attention other men paid her or would he sue the cell phone company? I know, here it is, if the cell phone was left on the seat of a chair and had been set to vibrate when the husband called and another customer was accidently sitting on it and became really excited and due to that excitement proposed to her boyfriend and they got married and had a child who turned out to be a mad scientist who nuked the whole darned lawsuit happy country, ….. …… , then would the wife of the husband who left the cell phone at McDonald’s be able to sue the Canadian uranium mine which supplied the fissile material for all those bombs which killed everybody or would she sue the manufacturer of the buzzer in the phone?
Moral of the story, ….. it’s a tough life when you eat too much junk food.
Arafin
It’s interesting you posted this when you did, because this issue arose for me a few days ago. This past Wednesday (the 19th) in a pub, I was asked for the lend of my phone. This was well into the evening by this stage, around midnight-ish. I handed my phone over, and they wandered off to make their call.
A combination of the lateness of the hour, the beverages consumed, and the fact that I didn’t have to ring a taxi all conspired to distract my notice from the fact that my phone had not been returned to me. When I got home, I realised I didn’t have it. I rang my phone first (no answer), and then the person who’d borrowed it. That person no longer had my phone, because he felt that putting it down on a table and waving cheerio to me (which I didn’t see) was the extent of his responsibility in the matter. However, he did say he’d swing by the bar the next day and drop the phone up to me at home.
The next day, 5 o’clock came and went, and still no phone. I rang the pub. Thankfully I’m well known there to all the staff, and they still had it behind the bar for me. I asked them not to let anyone else collect it and that I’d be down for it shortly. I rang the person who’d left it there. No answer. I had to make a special trip just to collect that phone. I was raging.
I think we can all appreciate that any mobile phone can be full of sensitive information – private contact information, private communications, and in the case of your post, private images. I felt incredibly let down and annoyed that my former friend had made me pay for the favour I’d done him with my inconvenience, time, effort, and risk of loss. Not to mention that he’d said he’d retrieve the phone for me, and he didn’t.
I have my phone set up so that it will automatically lock if I don’t touch any buttons on it for a few minutes, and only the correct code will open it. I don’t have any sensitive images on my phone, but even if I did, it is extremely unlikely that anybody could have accesed them because of the automatic locking mechanism. However, it was entirely possible that the phone itself could have gone completely and permanently missing. If it had, I would have had enormous amounts of hassle at the very least with
1. reassembling all the information I had before
2. sorting out a new SIM card and possibly a new number
3. the loss of all my saved communications and files
4. being without my phone for a time
5. researching, choosing, and forking out the requisite chunk of cash for a new phone
6. re-entering all the contact information, calendar events, settings etc
The favour I’d done could well have been repaid by costing me an absolute packet. Without the automatic locking mechanism enabled, I could have lost a lot more with fraudulent use to expensive numbers, as well as the possible unconsensual disclosure of private contact information for many people including myself.
I was incredibly disappointed that the person who borrowed my phone was carelessly and negligently willing to have me risk all that and more, and then apparently happy to compound my inconvenience by breaking his word to put it right. Because of the locking mechanism, I wasn’t concerned about any unwitting disclosure of sensitive information or files. But I’ll tell you something, I hope that phone call was worth it to that person, because I don’t need friends who are that thoughtless. I can do much, much better.
You ask if the managers and staff of that McDonalds could sue the couple for emotional distress, and who was ultimately responsible for those nude photos ending up on the internet?
I personally don’t think the staff of McDs were enduring much risk of emotional distress from the incident. What did they have to lose, after all? What did they actually lose in the incident? Did they lose their jobs? Did they have to move house? Some articles report that the couple had to move due to the flood of unwanted contact as a result of publication of their private contact information as well as the photos. Some of the articles report that the photos and contact information had appeared on the McDs website. That would seem to point to the employees. None of the articles I found mention the elapsed time between the husband leaving the phone, contacting McDs, and returning to collect the phone.
On the other hand, I have to feel for the McDs employees. I’ve had jobs like that, and those jobs are demoralising, difficult, and poorly paid. Jobs like that can rip your heart out. Having said that, I personally wouldn’t actually publish content from a phone inadvertently left behind.
It seems obvious to me that the people who published the photos on the internet were the ones responsible for publishing those photos on the internet. Certainly the husband could have taken more care with his phone, but it isn’t like he took the pictures of his wife and deliberately made them and all of his contact information available to the world.
People are vile, and stuff like this happens. I’m hoping that both members of that couple now secure their phones with locking codes.
This is just like the idiot who spilled hot coffee in her lap and sued the restaurant for her stupidity. The sad part is when the judge or the jury shows even more collective stupidity and award damages. I sometimes whish to be on such jury and explain to them about being responsible for one’s own negligence.
Apparently anything you do to yourself at a McDonalds is their fault.
But I love that photo in your post. Do you happen to know who the photographer is, or where it was published?
— Felix
Felix, I don’t know the photographer or where it was published. It’s seldom that I know either as I have a huge collection of photos that people send to me or that I happen to see when surfing.
Lubyanka commented: You ask if the managers and staff of that McDonalds could sue the couple for emotional distress, and who was ultimately responsible for those nude photos ending up on the internet?
I personally don’t think the staff of McDs were enduring much risk of emotional distress from the incident. What did they have to lose, after all? What did they actually lose in the incident? Did they lose their jobs?
I think if someone named me in a lawsuit and were seeking $3 million in damages, I’d be pretty emotionally distraught. The suit named McDonalds Corp, the franchise owner, and the store manager. I’d say the manager and the employee who supposedly promised to safeguard the phone will be sacked should this cost the company or the store owner.
The couple isn’t solely responsible. The employee who said he’d keep up with the phone isn’t solely responsible. In my opinion, they share responsibility therefore how can one sue the other?
The person who published the photos – if they can track down who it was – that person is responsible for a great deal and should be punished and in fact, put in jail. They’re not suing that person – they’re suing the deep pockets.
Some of the articles report that the photos and contact information had appeared on the McDs website. That would seem to point to the employees. None of the articles I found mention the elapsed time between the husband leaving the phone, contacting McDs, and returning to collect the phone.
I find it difficult to believe that McD’s had the photos on their site. (Not disbelieving you – disbelieving the reports). How do they even know an employee was the one who released the photos? It could have been someone an employee knew or even another customer who got hold of the phone. As far as I can see, McDonalds is only responsible for not securing the phone – a responsibility shared by the couple.
Your question about the length of time between the husband leaving the phone, contacting McD’s and returning to collect the phone crossed my mind too.
I have a variety of comments…
-The woman who spilled hot coffee was Stella Liebeck. If you do a web search for her name and Harvard Law School, you’ll find some excellent information that wasn’t filtered through corporate propaganda channels. It’s worth reading more about the case; you might change your mind about that particular case.
- If the photos were retrieved after the phone was recovered by a McD’s employee, then McD’s is probably going to end up paying, and I’m thinking that might only be fair.
- The real culprit is the person who posted the photos, who was almost certainly a McD’s employee, probably some 17-year-old kid who didn’t think about the implications of what he was doing. It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out how they got posted. A suitable punishment should be applied. I’m thinking castration.
- Nigel, I laughed at your first post. Excellent question. But the photos were on a cell phone, so I suspect the quality wasn’t that high. It’s not the best platform for artistic photography.
- If anyone runs across nude photos of me, try not to scream in horror, and I apologize in advance for any resulting therapy needs you may have.
FTW.