A California
woman is suing the Mexican Grill, a popular restaurant in America, for
$2 billion, and has accused the chain of using a photo of her dining at
the restaurant in several promotional materials – without obtaining her
consent.
Leah Caldwell, of Sacramento, Calif.
says she was dining at a Denver-area Chipotle in 2006 when photographer
Steve Adams snapped a photo of her enjoying a meal. The photo was taken
without the customer’s knowledge and, according to the complaint, Adams
later asked Caldwell to sign a release form as she left the restaurant,
but Caldwell refused.
The lawsuit, first filed in U.S.
District Court in California and later transferred to the U.S. District
Court in Colorado, names both Chipotle founder and CEO Steve Ells and
the photographer Steve Adams as defendants, reports Denver 7.
Since 2006, Caldwell claims she has seen
her likeness represented in Chipotle marketing material on several
occasions. She says she first saw the photo back in Dec. 2014 at a
Chipotle restaurant in Orlando and again in March 2015 at two different
Chipotle restaurants in the Sacramento Area.
The suit states that Chipotle bought the
photo from Adams without checking to see if the photographer had
obtained rights from the subject. The complaint also says that the photo
of Caldwell dining at Chipotle in 2006 had been edited so that
alcoholic beverages were digitally added to the image to near her meal.
The plaintiff still claims she had no
knowledge of the photo being taken a decade ago, but she acknowledges
that Caldwell was asked to sign a release, which she declined.
Caldwell is seeking a grand total of
$2,237,633,000– the amount of money the suit claims Chipotle has made
from the use of the photo between 2006 and 2015. Once Chipotle 2016
profits are made public, the suit is calling for that amount to be added
to the total.
A Chipotle spokesman told Denver 7 that the company does not comment on pending legal cases.
This article was originally published by Fox News
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