Two women who say Wal-Mart let a nude photograph of them get to someone else are back in court. Opening arguments began Tuesday in Clay County District Court in a case reinstated by the Minnesota State Supreme Court last year, says the Associated Press.
Elli Lake and Melissa Weber filed an invasion of privacy suit against Wal-Mart in 1996. They say Wal-Mart sent them notice that one or more photographs taken on a spring break trip to Mexico the year before weren't processed because of their "nature" - Weber's sister took a photograph of the two nude.
Their suit also claims that, not long after the trip, an acquaintance alluded to the photo and questioned their sexual orientation, and that still another friend told them a Wal-Mart worker had shown her a copy of the photograph.
In Tuesday's opening statements, their attorney, Keith Miller, said circumstantial evidence would reveal a Wal-Mart worker printed the photo in question but did not destroy it as company policy mandated. Wal-Mart attorney Dick Pemberton said three years' probing turned up no one who would testify under oath to seeing the photo outside the store photo lab. He said that the women should have expected people to see it if they took it to be developed, especially at "a public place".
Miller said the women sued to stop Wal-Mart from letting this kind of incident happen again, the AP says. The damages sought exceed $50,000 but no specified amount was named, the wire service says.
