SAN DIEGO – In a 187-page proposed statement of decision issued yesterday, San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin Enright awarded the 22 plaintiffs in the civil suit filed against the operators of GirlsDoPorn $9,475,831.50 in compensatory damages and $3,300,000 in punitive damages against the defendants, who the court found jointly and severally liable in the case.
(For background on this lawsuit, read YNOT’s prior coverage of the lawsuit claims, the criminal charges which have been filed against some of the defendants and previous rulings from Judge Enright.)
In addition to the financial damages, the proposed order would impose injunctive relief under which the defendants are required to disclose facts to future performers that were at the heart of the lawsuit’s claims – including that the videos in which the performers are to appear will be published on the internet.
“Defendants’ written agreements must clearly and affirmatively disclose in bold and centered at the top of the first page the following language: ‘the pornographic video subject to this agreement will be placed on the Internet, on www.GirlsDoPorn.com, or on free and public pornography websites,’” Enright wrote in the proposed order.
Enright’s order would also require to “ send any written agreements to prospective models, at least five (5) days in advance of the video shoot and before they travel to attend the shoot” – a provision that appears to be designed to prevent the defendants from pressuring performers to sign contracts they haven’t had time to thoroughly review, or opportunity to show to an attorney, another thing the defendants were accused of doing by the plaintiffs in this case.
The court also addressed the subject of the defendant’s “verbal release,” stating in the order that if such a release is used in the future, it “must include the following language: ‘I understand and agree that the pornographic video I am about to shoot will be placed on the Internet, on www.GirlsDoPorn.com, or on free and public pornography websites.’”
The defendants are also required to “obtain a model’s explicit, unambiguous consent in order to use her name or personal information for any purpose” and are prohibited from “using, publishing, licensing or distributing Plaintiffs’ images, likenesses, videos or copyrights.”
“Defendants must remove Plaintiffs’ images, likenesses, or videos produced by them from the internet sites owned or controlled by Defendants,” the order continues. “Defendants must take active steps to have such images, likenesses and videos removed from circulation and to safeguard Plaintiffs’ privacy.”
The final provision of the injunctive relief under the order states that the “Defendants are prohibited from using or disseminating Plaintiffs’ names or personal information in connection with their images, likenesses or videos and must take active steps to have such information removed from circulation and to safeguard Plaintiffs’ privacy.”
Enright’s decision delves into the facts of the case in exhaustive detail, recounting what the court termed the defendants’ “deceptive and unfair business practices,” “deceptive recruiting practices” and their willingness to “use coercive tactics if necessary.”
Enright wrote that the defendants’ tactics ultimately “caused the videos to become common knowledge in Plaintiffs’ communities and among their relations and peers – the very thing that Plaintiffs feared and that Defendants expressly assured them would not happen.”
“As a result, Plaintiffs have suffered and continue to suffer far-reaching and often tragic consequences,” Enright added.
Attorney Ed Chapin, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said his clients are pleased with the court’s decision.
“They are ecstatic,” Chapin said. “They feel vindicated. They’ve been through so much. This is empowering for them.”
Chapin’s co-counsel, Brian Holm, said in a written statement that despite the defendants “using their multimillion-dollar business resources to wage a three-year war of attrition against innocent victims and their counsel, the reprehensible conduct of the defendants is finally exposed and they have been held accountable.”
Aaron Sadock and Daniel Kaplan, the attorneys who represented GDP operator Michael Pratt, operations chief Matthew Wolfe and the GDP corporate entities, said via an email to Law.com that they are “weighing their client’s options” which include “filing objections to the court’s tentative statement of decision and an appeal if the decision becomes final.”
“At this point our clients are focused on defending themselves against the criminal charges in Federal Court in San Diego,” Sadock and Kaplan added in the email. “The tentative ruling does not affect the criminal case. The government’s burden of proof in the criminal case is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ which is a much higher standard than in this civil lawsuit where the burden of proof is a mere preponderance of the evidence. The findings of fact in the civil case do not carry over to the criminal case where the government will have to prove the facts under a much more stringent standard.”
The court has given both parties 15 days to file objections to the proposed decision.
