WWW- A "Girls Gone Wild" lawyer says a recently filed class-action lawsuit against the soft-core pornography company is improper and barred by statutes of limitations and the First Amendment.
Last month, attorneys for four unnamed females amended a lawsuit they filed in Panama City federal court in March to claim class-action status with potentially hundreds of plaintiffs. The original lawsuit claimed that the four girls were ranging in age from 13 to 17 when they were filmed in stages of undress or engaged in sexual activity.
Their lawyers, including D. Ross McCloy of Panama City and Chicago attorneys Larry Selander, Thomas Dent and Rachael Pontikes, were involved in a lawsuit filed in 2003 against "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis and his companies. Francis settled that lawsuit last year from a Bay County Jail cell after a federal judge found him in contempt of court for not mediating the case in good faith.
Attorney Paul Rolf Jensen of Costa Mesa, Calif., filed an answer last week to the recent lawsuit, the last of three that were filed within a year of Francis' jailhouse settlement. The other two lawsuits were dropped after Francis' lawyers threatened countersuits.
Jensen's filing, while sparse in detail, does state the company's defenses to the allegations. He writes that the lawsuit in general is barred by the statute of limitations. The allegations raised in the complaint all happened more than five years ago.
Jensen also wrote that class action is not appropriate because the individual plaintiff's claims are not common enough to represent a class of plaintiffs.
"All of Plaintiffs' claims, counts and causes of action," Jensen wrote, "are completely or in part barred by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution."
He also said the plaintiffs gave license and signed a release for their images to be used, barring any claim of damages.
With the filing of the answer and affirmative defenses to the lawsuit, the discovery process was put in motion. U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak filed a tentative schedule, setting a Dec. 5 deadline to complete discovery. A trial date was not immediately set.
