Kobe Bryant family gets nearly $29 million settlement in case over helicopter crash photos

Vanessa Bryant has agreed to accept a $28.85 million settlement from Los Angeles County in exchange for ending her fight against those she accused of improperly taking and sharing gruesome photos of her dead husband and daughter after they perished in a helicopter crash in January 2020.

The settlement includes the $15 million judgment she won against the county after a two-week civil jury trial last year in Los Angeles. It also resolves all pending litigation and future claims from Bryant, widow of Kobe Bryant, the NBA legend. It is subject to court approval and would cover her children as well.

“Today marks the successful culmination of Mrs. Bryant’s courageous battle to hold accountable those who engaged in this grotesque conduct,” her attorney, Luis Li, said in a statement Tuesday. “She fought for her husband, her daughter, and all those in the community whose deceased family were treated with similar disrespect.  We hope her victory at trial and this settlement will put an end to this practice.”

Why this is happening

Bryant had sued the county several months after the crash, alleging that county sheriff’s and fire department employees used their personal phones to take and share horrific photos from the crash scene of her daughter Gianna and husband Kobe. Her attorneys said these first responders had no legitimate business reason for doing so and instead were violating her privacy rights by using the photos as souvenirs or objects of amusement.

She then took her case to trial in August, when a federal jury of nine decided in favor of her and fellow plaintiff Chris Chester, who lost his wife and daughter in the same crash.

The jury determined that the county fire and sheriff’s departments violated their constitutional rights to control the death images of family members, as established by federal precedent under the Fourteenth Amendment. The jury initially awarded Chester $15 million and Bryant $16 million for their past and future emotional distress, though Bryant’s amount was reduced to $15 million after a juror noted an error on the verdict form.

In the end, the photos scandal cost the county more than $51 million in settlements, including $19.95 million for Chester and $1.25 million each for two other families that lost loved ones in the same crash.

“We believe the settlement approved by the Board in the Bryant case is fair and reasonable," said a statement from Mira Hashmall, partner at the Miller Barondess law firm and lead trial counsel for L.A. County in this case. "The $28,850,000 settlement includes the verdict awarded by the federal jury in August 2022, and further resolves all outstanding issues related to pending legal claims in state court, future claims by the Bryant children, and other costs, with each party responsible for its respective attorneys’ fees."

Why those amounts?

Attorneys for both plaintiffs had argued to the jury that this invasion of privacy compounded their distress after the tragedy. They said their clients feared these photos would resurface online at any moment even though the county said the photos were never posted online and were deleted shortly after the crash at the direction of then-L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

“I live in fear,” Bryant testified at the trial. “I live in fear every day of seeing — of being on social media and having these photographs pop up or having my 19-year-old be on social media and having these images pop up.”

The jury listened and responded with a verdict that compensates them for it. According to court records and verdict forms, the jury intended each of the $15 million verdicts to cover $2.5 million for past emotional distress and $12.5 million each for future emotional distress.

Li, Bryant’s attorney, has said Bryant wasn’t seeking a specific dollar amount and instead sought accountability from the county to put a stop to “this abhorrent and callous behavior.” He said she intended for proceeds from her winning judgment to go to the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation, a nonprofit designed to support underserved athletes.

Li also told the jury at trial that the practice of taking and sharing grisly crime and accident scene photos has been “going on for decades” among law-enforcement officers for no good reason, although the county said there is no evidence of this with the sheriff’s or fire department.

“Make it stop,” he told the jury.

Why she still had leverage

After the jury verdict, both Bryant and Chester maintained some leverage to settle with the county for more than they were awarded by the jury. Both could have pursued California state law claims against the county that were part of their lawsuits but not part of their trial over constitutional rights in U.S. District Court. Like Bryant, Chester instead decided to settle with the county to end the litigation, in his case for $19.95 million.

Those cases were not about who was at fault for the crash itself but instead about the actions of county agencies and employees with photos after the crash. In a separate case over fault for the crash, Bryant and the other families of the crash victims sued the operator of the doomed helicopter and reached a confidential settlement to end that case in 2021.

That case never went to trial. But the photos case did in August, when Bryant gave emotional testimony about the fear and anxiety she felt after learning first responders had improperly shared and displayed these images, including at a restaurant bar two days after the crash.

“Those photographs are totally different than an autopsy sketch,” Bryant testified at trial. “It's different. I don't ever want to see my babies in that way. I don't think anybody should ever see their family members in that way.”

The Bryant settlement newcomes several months after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved $47.6 million to settle five other cases alleging misconduct by deputies in the same sheriff’s department, including three deputy shooting incidents. Four of those cases came during the tenure of Sheriff Villanueva, who lost his reelection bid last year after a string of controversies during his four-year term.

Besides this civil litigation, the photos case also led to legislation in California in 2020 that makes it a misdemeanor crime for first responders to take unauthorized photos of dead people from crime or accident scenes.

“This settlement now concludes all County-related litigation related to the tragic January 2020 helicopter crash," Hashmall's statement said ."We hope Ms. Bryant and her children continue to heal from their loss.”

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: bschrotenb@usatoday.com.