McDonald's Sued Over Nude Photos

[Doctor Destiny 41]

A US couple is suing McDonald's for $3m (£2m) after nude photos of the woman, which were on her husband's mobile phone, ended up on the internet.

 

Phillip Sherman says he accidentally left his phone, with the photos, at a McDonald's in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

 

He says staff promised to secure the phone until he could retrieve it.

 

The Shermans claim they had to move to a new home after the woman's name, address, and phone number appeared online along with the photos.

 

Tina Sherman says she began receiving offensive calls and text messages about the pictures from her husband's mobile phone after he left it at the McDonald's on 5 July.

 

The couple then discovered that the nude pictures she had sent to her husband's phone had been posted online.

 

The Shermans are suing McDonald's Corporation, the owner of the franchise involved and the restaurant's manager, saying they have suffered emotional distress, embarrassment and damage to their reputations.

 

They also allege loss of earnings and want to recover the cost of moving to a new home.

 

McDonald's Corp, the franchise owner and the manager have so far refused to comment on the case.

 

The nude pictures have been removed from the website that had posted them.

Oh yay, another couple asking for free money on account of someone's stupidity. Here's a thought, don't lose your damn phone! Keep it in your pocket, or your purse and check around your seats for your ****! While I agree what happened sucks, but it's not sue-worthy!

 

If they'd kept their heads out of their asses, this wouldn't have been an issue. Besides, who the **** keeps nude photos of his wife on his phone? I mean seriously. That's TRWTF.

[Sonic 295]

And why is it McDonald fault?

 

America, where everybody sues everybody.

[BlyTwo 0]

it was obviously a set up, just to blame McDonald's for nothing, and get big money out of it.

[Duke 0]

He says staff promised to secure the phone until he could retrieve it.

 

There's always the chance that the photos had been taken off it before the staff had *secured it*...and because of that fairly substantial chance and no way to prove otherwise I don't think they'll get very far. Then again, your legal system does seem rather odd...

[Mina Synd 0]

what is wrong with these people? XDDDD i'm pretty much stunned at that... in so many ways. though i can understand the way they reacted by sueing and such. photos like that, especially with the address and phone number, can be HEAVILY damaging :\ no doubt it's on 4chan by now x3;

but gah. it's one thing for the McD's staff to steal the photos... but putting them online? and with details? that's just bad...

i should really make a comment about them leaving his phone there with no kind of password system on it at all, but go figure. for all we know he could have had bluetooth on and some pervert could have hacked his phone and stolen them xD (which is far easier then you'd think. my little cousin has discovered this and hacked one of his girlfriends' phone to show just how easy it was. note one of his girlfriends, not one of her phones XD)

but y'know i REALLY can't say anything about people leaving stuff behind. it's very easy to do... i have obsessive compulsive disorder and i've left a couple of items around before... (lost a coat in school, and left my wallety thing in the co-op shop at the till before XD didn't notice the latter until i had got home. i had turned my compy an tv an everything on... was just taking everything off and putting all my stuff away and realised my wallet was gone xD; so i had to run all the way back to the shop and grab it from the rather attractive young male attendant #>->#; who now waves and snickerfits everytime i go in the shop >->;; to my knowledge nothing was missing. money was still there, all my cards were still there. but i also have about 30 homemade business cards so he might have nicked one of them. but no-one has added me to msn that i didn't already know... so go figure xD)

[Duke 0]

so i had to run all the way back to the shop and grab it from the rather attractive young male attendant #>->#; who now waves and snickerfits everytime i go in the shop >->;;

 

Two Words: Oh Dear.

[Mina Synd 0]

*sigh* yah... but at least he notices me now ^-^ and talks to me... eheh X3

[Luk3us 63]

Well that sounds reasonable to me. hahahahha

[Wildshield 0]

I'm going to leave my phone at the Shermans then sue them. Then for giggles, sue McDonald cuz I'm Lov'n it.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Make it a set up like this one. Find some girl you know, say you need naked pics for free cash, make sure you offer her some so she'll agree and repeat what this idiot couple did. Free money for all! You could do it to other restaurants for diversity, and I'm all about spreading that around.

[Nmenth 291]

This one will have to pay out first, otherwise your scam might not be any more successful.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

That's true. And I'll do it to a Burger King instead. If this works, I'm so doing it.

[Chronojam 3]

what the **** are you all on about here? The Shermans filed a suit against McDonald's Corp. (McD HQ), Matthews Management Company (the franchiser), and Mr. Brummley, the manager at that praticular establishment. You all act as if this is unjustified or outlandish. What's wrong with you?

 

A guy lost his phone at a McDonald's, and contacted the place to have them secure it so it would not be lost, vandalized, etc. until he got back there. While it was supposedly being safely kept, somebody managed to look through the phone at length, make harassing calls/texts to the owner's wife, and then obtained and uploaded the images to the web. While it was supposedly being safely kept, again. The manager told them it was being kept in a secure location, when this all happened. I'm fairly sure that as long as the Sherman's aren't making every detail up, it's fairly simple to pull the logs of all this activity; I know that my own cell phone's billing statement lists every call with the length, date, time, has annotations for any data sent, etc.

 

I know this is an internet gaming forum, but I expected better from cncnz posters.

[Nmenth 291]

As a judge said in a previous case featuring Man-who-spilled-hot-coffee-on-self vs Burger King, "Stupidity is a preexisting condition, get this man out of my courtroom."

Hope you don't get him, DD

 

If the nude contents of that man's phone were worth $3 million, maybe it should have been in a safe at his home instead of a public restaurant. Last I checked, their job was to sell semi-edible food, not keep valuables in safety deposit boxes.

If I was the judge and the man was able to present unquestionable proof that it was 100% McDonalds' fault, I still wouldn't award him $3 million. The man chose to carry a very delicate item with him, chose to leave it in a location where it could be forgotten (I am led to assume this fact, since he forgot it), then trusted a McDonalds manager to secure it (who I'll wager was under 25 years of age, wouldn't be surprised if under 20).

The man was screwed over, true, but due to his own incompetence, and certainly not worth $3 million.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Chrono, you don't get where any of us are coming from. No one denies it's a ****** thing to happen but the simple fact that he left nude pictures of his wife on a mobile device is proof that it is stupidity that caused this, not McDonald's. It's not fair to sue them for it. Besides, this all sounds like a damn set up anyway.

[Chronojam 3]

You're damn right I don't get where the hell you're coming from. What if it was a blackberry and it had key details to an upcoming corporate acquisition worth $5m? Are you also going to blame him for having his address and telephone numbers stored on the phone, next? I mean, without them, they'd never be able to abuse that information!

 

Why you think anybody would provide naked photos of their wife on a "planted" phone, anticipate the images showing up on the web, expect an employee or the manager himself to make harassing calls, etc. etc. as part of some crazy scheme to threaten their good name and be forced to relocate and possibly threatening a career or two sure has me wondering where the hell you're coming from. How many of you would give away scandalous pictures of your girlfriend, on a hunch somebody might distribute them on the internet, in the vain hope that events would transpire perfectly according to script and you can make a case out of it? This isn't SAW VI people, things don't just fall into place like that.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

If you have that type of sensitive information on a Blackberry and it's not encrypted, you fail, your company fails and you should be an hero. Seriously. If you have that sort of thing on your phone, you try to guard it with the utmost security and make damn sure that it's not left behind or stolen, which I think it was. My brother lost his phone at a Pizza Hut and someone stole it, used it to make calls to a sex line and binned it after the battery died. Seems like someone with a tech savvy friend got a hold of it and wanted to be douches.

 

As for it being a setup, it wasn't necessarily a planted phone but I don't believe the couple is entirely innocent. Just stupid.

[Chronojam 3]

Stupid enough to trust the manager to keep it safe and not **** around with it or let his employees mess with it? Maybe that's naieve, but hardly malicious and hardly a setup.

 

Sure people can lock their phones or enable passwords, but most only do it if they're taking it out of their pocket to leave it in the car/purse/etc. If you took it out to make a call and it slipped out of your pocket or you put it on the chair instead of back in, what are the odds you'd remember to lock the thing up after? I mean, come on, most people who live in a dorm don't lock their computer 100% of the time when it's time to get up and make some food or take a piss-- and in a university there's all sorts of potential for getting screwed if it's compromised. Most people would trust others to not go out of their way to dig up damaging information and invade their privacy (especially if they specifically asked them to safeguard said information the moment it became a concern). If YOU found my phone, and I asked you to keep it safe until I had a chance to swing by, you can bet your ass I would sue the hell out of you if you agreed and then promptly put everything you found online. At the very least, not to be an e-thug, I'd break your jaw. Wouldn't you do the same to me?

 

Hey, here's what your brother should've done. Call the place. If they found it and have it, ask them to hold onto it for you and keep it safe. If they don't, contact your carrier and have them disable it. Tada! I guess he instead hurf durf epic failed an hero lolcat adtrw rejects setup etc etc.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Since there was no comment from the manager or the staff, how the **** do you know they even had it? Also, stop trying to defend their stupidity. You just do not leave something like that on something you can so easily lose. End of ******* story, next ******* case.

 

I don't lose my phone for one thing, mine auto-locks after being idle as do most new phones so there is little excuse for these morons now. If it's new enough to hold pictures, it's new enough to be set to auto-lock.

 

OH YEAH! Call our carrier! Why didn't we think of that?! Idiot.

Oh and the difference this couple and my brother is simple - he didn't have anything worth taking on his phone. He's not a dip****.

[Nmenth 291]

Because its embedding is disabled, click here.

[Mina Synd 0]

they are humans. they had every right to sue, but it was their own damn fault. they really didn't deserve that kind of money. i mean seriously, $3m to cover the cost of his wife's naked form, a lost phone and some call bills? now i'd understand if his wife was say... sarah michelle gellar or scarlett johansson, or some high level celebrity who has never given naked pictures or footage (notice scarlett doesn't really apply for that...) heck, even paris hilton could sue for that and she helped spread her own sex tapes all over o-O

 

but a normal person? how old is she? is her job a supermodel? i mean if she is like, 70 and ugly as sin anyway, do you really think anyone would have taken note? sure it's just as bad morally, but generally the people who do these things are shallow. therefore someone who is extremely physically attractive will end up ALL over the web as opposed to being on one webpage and a couple of people's harddrives who happened to get in before the lock...

 

if they wanted an honest appraisal of the value of her naked form they should try going to various advert modelling agencies, both catwalk modelling, photoshooting and "real beauty" modelling. whatever they offer for her, you just boost it to say, a couple of year's worth of constant work pay... that should be what those images are worth. not three freaking million.

 

i mean honestly. adult sites pick up normal girls off the street for a couple of hundred dollars. people sell homemade tapes (their own and stolen ones...) to voyeur/amateur/revenge sites for $100 a pop. and they think she deserves THREE MILLION for a few naked stills? chances are she probably wasn't even doing anything in the photos besides standing there with no clothes. you could go to a nudist beach to see that >_>

 

all this case is, is stupidity being turned into oppotunity at the cost of a little misery to certain people. no doubt someone got fired for that. and the problem is it happens all the time in modern western countries... someone does something stupid because they aren't paying attention then sue people for it. i mean COME ON, there are ACCIDENT lawyers out there. you can't sue people for an accident. but apparently you can. car reversing out of a road with kids in the way, who can't see and backed out slowly with his warning lights on? omi goshi you crashed into his car! you can sue him for causing an accident and giving you a neckbrace for a week which you didn't even need! bump in the pavement? SUE! because obviously every little piece of dirt is somebodies fault. the banana skin you dropped when walking along then tripped over? SUE THE COUNSIL! because their bin guy wasn't there to pick it up from under your foot before your tripped!

 

i mean get real. 90% of sueing cases are just pointless money-grabbing attempts because of people's own stupidity and embarressment to admit it was their fault >_> heck, the percentage is probably much higher then that. don't get me wrong, sometimes it is required when something really bad has actually happened... but lordie... everyone wants something for nothing. when i was little i was running on the pavement outside my primary school. i tripped on a piece of concrete and smacked my head on a little lump that was sticking up. blood was everywhere and i had to have my forehead glued back together again

 

we could have sued. did we? no. it's freaking pointless. i could have gotten £20k out of that easily. we had the report of the doctor and lots of witnesses to varify that there was a nice amount of damage... but we don't do that sort of thing. if you want free money, you find another way. go rob a bank and steal some used bank notes or unissued bearer bonds then fake your own death by blowing up the bank. (die hard anyone?) heck, just plan your attack and steal a case from the guard in a money transport van whilst he's moving it. or you could even (shock horror!) come up with a good idea and put it into practice. invent an item which everyone will need, make a movie, create a work of art. anyone could do any of these things and many more if they just sat down and put their mind to it...

 

but that doesn't happen. easy way out ftw! >->

[Doctor Destiny 41]

That's worthy of Epic Rant of The Week. xD

[Mina Synd 0]

probably yup xD today i've been posting horribly long posts and i don't know why. probably trying to cover every single post previous since my last posts >->; and my texts are long anyway... go figure i guess xD

[General Leang 0]

My two cents on this. I sort of lean towards the side of the couple who lost the phone. I have friends who have on their phones material that is much much worse than nude photos, so as long as there is nothing illegal I do not see why the content should be an issue. It is possible that the phone was left there so that this could happen. However for this to work an employee at McDonalds would have to find the phone, look through it, send the photos and information somewhere and then put it online. That was a bit of a gamble for someone at McDonalds to do, as opposed to anyone walking in to do the same thing or even just take the phone with no idea as to the contents, or at least no desire to put what was on the phone online. The facts are that McDonalds claimed the phone was secured, and yet somehow sensitive information from it was placed online. Certainly the couple are to blame for having the photos and then losing the phone. However they did not as far as I can see upload the photos or cause the grief they have faced, someone who had access to the phone did. If McDonalds were meant to be the only ones to have access to it then it would be reasonable for questions to be asked about how the information got out.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

I don't recall the story ever actually saying that McDonald's had the phone the whole time. It's entirely possible that Joe Random happened along it and decided to take a look-see, found the gold mine and sent the photos to some account. There's a lot of variables that are never explained in the article. It could be McDonald's recovered the phone well after it had been compromised.

 

Maybe a setup is a stretch but it rides that line. Then again, it doesn't take much for someone to really damage another person's reputation these days. You can thank /b/ for that.