Under what law could Peter Doig have been liable for saying he did not paint a painting? It is in the news that Peter Doig has won a case, including being granted $2.5 million in fees, after he said he did not paint a picture. From the NYT at the time the case was submitted, the claimant says &quot;His suit contends that Mr. Doig is either confused or lying and that his denials blew up a plan to sell the work for millions of dollars.&quot; After seeing the facts of the case, it seems obvious that Mr. Doig was neither confused or lying, but what if he was? None of the articles state exactly what law may have been broken here. Under what circumstances could someone sue another for either being confused or lying about the fact of if an item was created by them?
The original lawsuit was filed &quot;seeking damages for their alleged tortious interference with Plaintiffs' prospective economic advantage by taking action that scuttled the auction of a painting owned by Fletcher, and also seeking a declaration that Doig painted the painting&quot;, insofar as Doig denied being the painter of the work. To simplify matters, Fletcher came to possess a painting, (purportedly) believed that it was painted by Doig, and sought to sell it for a large amount of money. Doig stated that he did not paint the work. Doig acted to prevent the sale of the painting – that is against the law. Plaintiffs sought declaratory judgement, that the painting was made by Doig. In a trial subsequent to the above ruling, the court actually declared that the painting was not done by Doig, and Doig sued for &quot;vexatious litigation&quot;, being awarded a sanction of $2,525,958.35.
I don't know of any legal reason to care whether people consider reverse graffiti to be graffiti, since graffiti is not itself a legal concept. The act when done without permission is, however, trespassing, which is against the law. Painting a building is legal, if done with permission; painting a building in a pattern is legal, if done with permission. Strangely enough, cleaning a building without permission, whether entirely of selectively in a pattern, is illegal. There are in fact specific laws about defacing property, so the illegality of the act does not rely solely on trespass laws. The NYC law is here, the California law is here, and there are many similar laws. In Washington, illegality arises from a more general prohibition against causing physical damage, which is defined here, and boils down to "costs money to fix". These laws are not limited to "applying opaque material to a surface".
Against Bob: yes; Against Cindy: no I'm going to borrow @Trish's example because it's a good one although the conclusions they reach are wrong. Alice made a green box. Bob signs an NDA never to tell anyone that Alice made a green box, and there is a clause in it that if the NDA is breached, the box is red. Bob tells Cindy that Alice made a green box. Cindy has a patent on making green boxes. Cindy sues Alice and in the lawsuit puts Bob on the stand. Situation 1 So, the box is objectively green and objectively a breach of Cindy's patent on green boxes. Bob is on the stand and is required to answer questions honestly and no contract can prevent him from doing so. He testifies that the box is green. This would be a breach of contract except that a clause that requires a breach of the law (perjury in this case) is void for public policy reasons so Bob cannot be sued for this. However, he can be sued for the initial breach - he may have a public policy defense here because Alice was breaking the law, however, it’s easy enough to construct a scenario where Alice was innocent but suffered loss from Bob’s disclosure. Cindy can say what she likes because she is not bound by the NDA. Cindy wins, Alice loses. Situation 2 Cindy dies - after a long and happy life so we won't grieve too much. To Bob's surprise, he inherits Cindy's green box patent of which he was previously in complete ignorance of. Bob sues Alice for breaching Cindy's now his, patent. So, the box is objectively green and objectively a breach of Cindy's patent on green boxes. However, Bob agreed with Alice in the contract that the box is red and so, legally for matters between Alice and Bob the box is legally red (notwithstanding that everyone knows it's green) and is not in breach of Bob's patent. This sort of stuff has a name - a legal fiction. Adoption is a legal fiction - adoptive parents are (legally) parents; biological parents of adopted children are (legally) strangers. Alice wins, Bob loses.
"Double jeopardy" applies to a criminal proceeding, that is one that needs to be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt," and involves criminal sanctions such as jail time. Once OJ was acquitted of criminal charges, he couldn't be tried again as a "criminal." The second trial was a civil trial, with a "lesser" standard of proof (preponderance of evidence), and lesser "damages" (money, not jail time). So even though the facts were the same, OJ was accused of violating a different standard, that is a different "law" so to speak. He could be tried for a "tort" just not a crime. Or put another way, "wrongful death" is not the same as murder. The latter requires intent. Wrongful death suggests "tortious" negligence, but not necessarily intent.
Bottom line I'd tread pretty carefully here. If you paid $2000 for the photo, you might want to check to see if it came with a licensing agreement. Background One way to view this is through the lens of privacy. The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652A subjects privacy invaders to liability for the resulting harm to the interests of the other. Because you mention public personas and your facts don't involve disclosing private details, negative publicity, or interfering with seclusion, one might think appropriation of name or likeness applies. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652C One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy. Comment (a) to this section explains that a person's identity is in the nature of a property right. Courts have tended to recognize an individual's interest in the exclusive use of his or her own identity, going so far as to require licensing for usage. The most common way to violate this &quot;property right&quot; is by appropriating someone's name or likeness to promote a business or product. Cases abound on the subject, but a classic one is White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., 971 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1992). To summarize, Samsung ran a picture-based ad featuring a futuristic robot dressed in an evening gown and turning &quot;Wheel of Fortune&quot;-styled letters. Vanna White was nonplussed and brought suit, which she won on appeal. In its opinion, the Ninth Circuit argued the operative question wasn't how Samsung appropriated her likeness, but whether they had done so. The point of citing White here is simply to observe that a person's &quot;likeness&quot; probably extends even further than mere photo reproduction. Back to your facts: posting actual images of celebrities for a commercial purpose appears a much more clear cut appropriation of likeness than White. While it may seem similar, I'd distinguish your situation from that of restaurant &quot;Walls of Fame&quot;---which showcase signed photos of celebrities with the owner---in that the celebrities you mention weren't using your product or service at the time of the photograph. You might argue the photos aren't being used for advertising, but the plaintiff would counter that you posted them on a client-facing business website. In the Ninth Circuit this would be a question of whether there was an appropriation, not the way in which it was accomplished. For argument's sake, assume the court agrees your usage isn't commercial. Even that doesn't necessarily mean you're in the clear. In § 652C, and varying state-by-state, non-commercial purposes are also subject to scrutiny: Comment (b). Apart from statute, however, the rule stated is not limited to commercial appropriation. It applies also when the defendant makes use of the plaintiff's name or likeness for his own purposes and benefit, even though the use is not a commercial one, and even though the benefit sought to be obtained is not a pecuniary one. Statutes in some states have, however, limited the liability to commercial uses of the name or likeness. It's important to remember the Restatement isn't binding: it simply attempts to &quot;restate&quot; what courts (which are binding) have had to say on the topic. If you paid a lot of money for the photo, it might pay to see if it came with a licensing agreement.
The fault lies with the people who vandalized your house. In general, whoever causes you damage is responsible (liable) for that damage. This is true whether or not you are selling your house, having guests over, letting a friend stay over for a night or a week, or whatever the circumstance is. Insurance is there to cover many such losses: if a friend trashes your house in a drunken rage, your insurance will cover the damage, but they will invoke the doctrine of subrogation whereby they get to go after the friend, and you have to cooperate. In a situation where nobody has a clue who did the damage, the only possible way that the agent has any responsibility is if they were negligent in their duty to take care of the house. For your specific case, you'd need to discuss the forensic facts with your attorney. But generally speaking, the issue would be whether the agent had breached his/her professional duty of care, which is best understood as comparing his actions (or lack) compares to actions of other professionals in the same circumstance. If a house has 3 or 4 sets of visitors simultaneously, it is really not possible for an agent to supervise all of them at once. So the question would be, was this the result of one concentrated vandalism attack, or serial vandalism. The former is more in the realm of "stuff happens", and the latter is indicative of an endemic lack of care. To repeat, the fault lies with the miscreants who vandalized your house. You, or your insurance company, may nevertheless have to bear the financial burden. Your insurance company will certainly have an interest in spreading responsibility to the realty firm, if warranted by the facts.
Laws are different around the world and you didn't bother to state your location, but typically no- this is not how the system works. What would be the point? There's no defendant. You, the plaintiff would argue against thin air and then what? The court rules in your favour, declares this illegal, and nothing happens because there's no defendant. Is it so you can use this ruling if you find out later? Pretty sneaky. Let's look into how this would actually work. You bring up a case- Jackson vs a mannequin or something. You make your arguments. The defense makes literally no defense. The judge rules in your favour, with a result of nothing as there is no defendent. Next, you find the culprit and bring a case against them. You point out that this is illegal because we came to that decision last week. What's that defendant? An argument against it being illegal? Too bad, the decision has been made. When I posted this answer, it was before the &quot;Nyah, I was ranting about government spying but was deliberately vague- aren't I clever?&quot; comment and I assumed it was against, say, a neighbour but it doesn't really matter. You cannot have a system that makes a judgement without a defendant so it can be applied later.
All torts have to be proved. In 99.99% of cases the proof is by admission of the tortfeaser. That is, they agree to pay damages with or without admission of liability. Where liability is contested, there are never any “slam dunks”. There are strong cases, even very strong cases, but when someone else is deciding the case, there are no certainties. Remember, if your opponent thought they were going to lose, they’d settle. Looking at your examples, it seems that the tort you are thinking of is negligence. In order to establish negligence as a Cause of Action under the law of torts, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant: had a duty to the plaintiff, breached that duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct (generally the standard of a reasonable person), the negligent conduct was, in law, the cause of the harm to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was, in fact, harmed or damaged. Where the issue is not one of evidence, that is, the facts are as you say and are not in dispute, the question is not “what happened”, but “is what happened negligence”. For all the examples, 1, 3, and 4 are probably not in dispute: there was a duty, the conduct caused damage at law and the plaintiff actually suffered harm. The question to be decided is whether the driver failed to conform to the required standard of care. For examples 2 and 3, most courts would conclude they didn’t. For example 1, some courts might decide that the way the driver drove did conform to the required standard and others that they didn’t. The legal argument would not be about “proof”, it would be about the standard the law requires.