ATLANTA, GA — A federal appeals court in Atlanta, GA, ruled a woman has no standing to sue Playboy Entertainment Group, a Florida hotel corporation or a photographer over photos and video taken of her during a wet T-shirt contest seven years ago and subsequently posted to the internet.According to court documents, Julie Amanda Tilton was two months shy of her 18th birthday when during spring break 2001 she participated in two wet T-shirt contests, a “banana-sucking contest” and a “sexual positions contest” sponsored in part by Playboy at the Desert Inn Resort & Suites Convention Complex in Daytona Beach, FL. Each contest was observed by 300-400 people, some of whom captured images with video cameras or cell-phone cams.
In her lawsuit, Tilton leveled accusations that the defendants engaged in sexual exploitation of a minor by photographing or allowing her to be photographed in a wet T-shirt or engaging in “sexually explicit conduct.”
In the case of Playboy and the hotel, “we conclude that the district court did not err because Tilton did not produce substantial evidence that the videos and photographs depict sexually explicit conduct,” Judge Bill Pryor wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As for the photographer, the court determined “the district court did not err because Tilton did not present substantial evidence that the photographer knew that Tilton was a minor when he displayed images on the website” and because he removed the images immediately upon notification.
According to Pryor’s opinion, the law defines “sexually explicit conduct” as intercourse, other specific sexual acts or lascivious exposure of the genitals. Tilton’s genitals were covered and her actions did not create the impression of an actual sexual act, Pryor wrote.
