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Ninth Circuit Finds No Publicity Claim In <i>Hurt Locker</i>
The producers of the movie The Hurt Locker had a First Amendment right to fictionalize the experience of a U.S. Army explosives technician in the Iraq war, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled. Sarver v. Chartier, 12-55429. The decision ended a right-of-publicity and defamation action brought by Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver against the Oscar-winning film's producer, director and screenwriter, plus various corporate defendants.
Sarver led one of three teams in the 788th Ordnance Company tasked with identifying and disposing of improvised explosive devices (IED). Mark Boal, a journalist working for Playboy Magazine , was embedded with Sarver's unit and spent about a month following him around, shooting photos and video of him, and later interviewing him at his home in Wisconsin.
Sarver objected that he had not consented to the use of his name and likeness in the subsequent Playboy article ' or the screenplay that Boal created for The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow and producer Nicholas Chartier framed the movie around a character named Will James whose appearance, temperament and experiences in Iraq allegedly track Sarver's.
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