Photographer Thomas Dallal’s Case Against New York Times Remanded to Lower Court

The U. S. Second Circuit has vacated a lower court’s award of summary judgment in the case of Dallal v. New York Times. The plaintiff, a freelance photographer, claimed that the defendant had infringed his copyright in his photographs by continuing to use them on its website without express authorization. “Dallal submits that the district court erred in concluding that he was equitably estopped from asserting his copyright infringement claim. Because we conclude that the question of estoppel cannot be decided as a matter of law on the present record, we vacate the challenged judgment and remand the case to the district court. Equitable estoppel “`is properly invoked when the enforcement of rights of one party would work an injustice on the other party due to the other’s justifiable reliance upon the former’s words or conduct.'”…. “

Read the Second Circuit’s ruling here.  Read an earlier post here.

[Thanks to Thomas Dallal for alerting me to this ruling].