Kobe Bryant’s Widow, Co-Plaintiff Awarded $31 Million by Jury Over Crash Photos

Vanessa Bryant (R), wife of the late Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant, and her daughter Natalia Bryant depart the court house after a verdict was reached in Bryant's federal negligence lawsuit against Los Angeles County, in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 24, 2022. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

A federal jury in California has awarded $31 million in damages to Vanessa Bryant and Chris Chester, whose spouses and children were killed in a 2020 helicopter crash, after Los Angeles County emergency personnel shared photos of their dead bodies.

The jury returned their unanimous verdict after four-and-a-half hours of deliberation. The nine jurors agreed that the photos of NBA star Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, and other crash victims brought the co-plaintiffs emotional distress and invaded their privacy.

Bryant was awarded $16 million and Chester was awarded $15 million. Bryant’s attorneys did not specify a dollar amount that they thought their client deserved, but Chester’s attorney suggested guidelines that would have meant tens of millions for each plaintiff, The Associated Press reported.

According to evidence presented at the trial, a sheriff’s deputy showed a photo of Bryant’s body to a bartender as he drank. This spurred an official complaint from another man drinking nearby.

Firefighters also reportedly shared photos with each other at an awards banquet while others shared them with spouses.

Firefighters work at the scene of a helicopter crash where former NBA basketball star Kobe Bryant died in Calabasas, Calif., on Jan. 26, 2020. Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo

Defense

An attorney for Los Angeles County said the photos were taken to assess the site moments after the crash and that Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva demanded they all be deleted when he learned the photos were being shared, The Associated Press reported.

During her three-and-a-half hours on the stand, Bryant said, in answer to a statement by county attorney J. Mira Hashmall about the photos being needed to assess the situation, that taking “close-up photos of people” wasn’t necessary.

“I think he could have just counted,” Bryant said, referring to Deputy Doug Johnson, who hiked through tough terrain into the hills in northern Los Angeles County to the crash site and shot the photos that were later shared.

Vanessa Bryant’s lawyer Luis Li told jurors that the close-up photos had no official or investigative purpose, and were mere “visual gossip” shared out of a gruesome curiosity, The Associated Press reported.

Hashmall agreed the photos shouldn’t have been shared but noted that they hadn’t emerged publicly, and had never even been seen by the plaintiffs.

The attorney argued that this meant the sheriff and other officials had taken decisive and effective action when they ordered those who had the photos to delete them.

Kobe Bryant was traveling with his daughter and seven others to a youth basketball game when the helicopter crashed into hills in Calabasas, west of Los Angeles, on Jan. 26, 2020.

Federal safety officials blamed pilot error for the crash.

A previous version of this article misstated the awarded amount. The Epoch Times regrets the error.