New York, USA - An Orthodox Jew who had his photo taken without his knowledge could not claim his civil rights were violated - even though his religion forbids it - because he did not take court action within a year of its display, New York state's highest court ruled Thursday.
The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, who photographed Erno Nussenzweig and displayed the image in 2001 in the show Heads at the Pace Gallery in Manhattan.
The show featured images of 17 people photographed without their knowledge in New York, Tokyo, Calcutta and Mexico City.
Nearly four years after the show, in March 2005, Nussenzweig first learned that his picture had been taken and was used in an exhibition and sold to the public at $20,000 to $30,000 each.
Nussenzweig, 80, filed suit shortly thereafter, arguing that diCorcia had violated his statutory right to privacy according to civil rights law and that his image was used for commerce.
New York's right-to-privacy laws prohibit the use of a person's likeness for commercial purposes without the person's permission. But if the likeness is deemed to be art, the commerce restrictions do not apply.
Attorneys for diCorcia argued that the law requires any claim of a civil rights violation to be filed within one year from the initial display of the image - not within a year of when Nussenzweig first learned of it.
The court agreed.
Nussenzweig's lawyer, Jay Goldberg, has said his client's religion forbids reproducing his image by photography or other means because of the belief in the Second Commandment's prohibition against graven images.
Calls to Goldberg and diCorcia's attorney, Lawrence Barth, were not immediately returned Thursday