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Judge orders Vanessa Bryant to turn over therapy records

The widow of LA Lakers legend Kobe Bryant has two weeks to turn over notes from sessions with her therapist going back nearly five years.

(CN) — A judge ordered Vanessa Bryant to turn over records from her therapist as part of the discovery phase in her lawsuit claiming Los Angeles County Sheriff's officers who shared photographs of her late husband's helicopter crash site caused her emotional anguish.

"Plaintiff has waived her psychotherapist-patient privilege by placing into controversy the reportedly extraordinary, continuing emotional distress allegedly resulting from defendants’ photograph-related actions or inactions," U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Eick wrote in an order issued Monday.

Vanessa's husband, Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, died in a helicopter crash in January 2020 along with their daughter Gianna and six others. The following month, The Los Angeles Times reported a sheriff's deputy had taken pictures of the crash site, some depicting victims' remains, and had sent the photos around to other officers and fire department officials. One officer supposedly showed the photos to patrons at a bar in Norwalk while a fire captain showed them to people at an awards ceremony, according to the lawsuit.

Vanessa Bryant sued the county, the sheriff's department, fire department and four sheriff's deputies, claiming the dissemination of the photos caused her "severe emotional distress" which "compounded the trauma of losing Kobe and Gianna."

"The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Fire Department defaulted in their duty to preserve the dignity of the dead," Bryant's lawyers wrote in a recent filing. "This case is about holding them accountable for their misconduct."

The county has claimed that the photographs were never shared with the general public, and that when Sheriff Alex Villanueva learned of the photographs, he ordered them all to be deleted — an act he has said was in keeping with a promise he made personally to her, but which she says amounted to the destruction of evidence and a cover-up.

This month, lawyers for the county asked the judge to order that records from Vanessa Bryant's longtime therapist be turned over.

"The county sympathizes with Mrs. Bryant for her loss and grief as a result of that accident and does not in any way minimize or dispute her suffering from that loss," lawyers for the county wrote in their motion. "Plaintiff’s claims, however, are not based on that loss; they are based on allegations that defendants showed photographs of the crash scene to other first responders and to a bartender. Plaintiff claims she is depressed and has trouble sleeping. Her damages claims are premised entirely on these mental and emotional injuries. Plaintiff’s therapy records go directly to her emotional condition, which she has put squarely at issue in this lawsuit."

Vanessa Bryant's lawyers argued that turning over the therapist's records would amount to yet another invasion of privacy. The judge agreed with the county, although he ruled that the county could see records going only as far back as Jan. 1, 2017, not going all the way back to 2010 as the county had asked for.

She has two weeks to turn over the records. The case goes to trial in February 2022.

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Categories / Civil Rights, Entertainment, Health, Sports

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