Lothar Motschenbacher v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, a Corporation, and William Esty Company

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• asking whether race car led viewers to believe that the plaintiff was in the ad, not simply that it reminded them of him
• rejecting trial court's ruling that because plaintiff's face was not recognizable in advertisement photograph, his identity had not been misappropriated, and finding that plaintiff was identifiable from distinctive decorations on race car
• rejecting trial court’s ruling that because plaintiff’s face was not recognizable in advertisement photograph, his identity had not been misappropriated, and finding that plaintiff was identifiable from distinctive decorations on race car
• race car driver’s right of publicity enforceable even though his facial features are not identifiable
• use of a photo of race car of a well-known professional race car driver having distinctive decorations on the car violated driver’s right of publicity even though name and likeness were not used
• overruled in part on other grounds

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).