Zeta-Jones Says Bye to "Hello!" Appeal
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas are saying goodbye to any more money from Hello! magazine.
The Court of Appeal in London has overturned a ruling forcing Hello! to pay $1.8 million in damages to rival OK! magazine for preempting the latter's "exclusive" coverage of the couple's blockbuster 2000 wedding by publishing unauthorized photos.
Additionally, the presiding magistrate, Lord Philips, rejected Douglas and Zeta-Jones' appeal to increase their damage award of $26,800 for distress and breach of privacy.
Philips also ordered OK! to pick up Hello!'s legal costs.
According to the magistrate, OK! failed to make clear how much commercial damage was done by Hello!'s scoop.
"The judgment is a resounding win for Hello!, " the magazine's lawyer, Chris Hutchings, told Reuters following the ruling.
Attorneys for the Tinseltown twosome and OK! said they would appeal to the House of Lords.
OK! signed a $1.6 million contract with Douglas and Zeta-Jones for the exclusive rights to photographs of their November 2000 nuptials.
But Hello! managed to acquire wedding pics taken by freelancers who had crashed the party; the magazine ran the photos as "spoilers" in advance of the OK! wedding issue.
OK! filed suit and was joined by Douglas and Zeta-Jones, who sought $800,000 for loss of income, stress and damage to their career. Zeta-Jones called the Hello! photos "cheap and tacky" because their poor quality; the Welsh-born beauty also groused that the illicit snapshots made her look fat.
Hello!'s honcho, Eduardo Sanchez Junco, admitted in court in 2003 that his magazine published the paparazzi pics to scoop its competitor, but he insisted it did nothing illegal and that such tactics are common among rival publications.
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