Catsouras was traveling on the 241 Toll Road in Lake Forest at approximately 1:38 pm, when she clipped a Honda Civic that she was attempting to pass on the right at over 100 miles per hour (160 km/h).
[2] The Porsche crossed the road's broad median, which lacks a physical barrier on that segment, and crashed into an unmanned concrete toll booth near the Alton Parkway interchange.
[3] An internal investigation led the CHP to issue a formal apology and take action to prevent similar occurrences in the future, after discovering that departmental policy had been violated by the two dispatch supervisors.
The superior court judge who dismissed the case ruled in March 2008 that while the dispatchers' conduct was "utterly reprehensible",[1] there was no law that allowed it to be punishable.
[4] Attorney and blogger Ted Frank wrote that even though the media were sympathetic to the parents' plight, "the Streisand effect has resulted in far more dissemination of the gruesome photos".
[5] On February 1, 2010, it was reported that the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District had reversed Judge Perk's grant of summary judgment, and instead ruled that the Catsouras family did have the right to sue the defendants for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Calling the actions of O'Donnell and Reich "vulgar" and "morally deficient", the court stated: We rely upon the CHP to protect and serve the public.
It is antithetical to that expectation for the CHP to inflict harm upon us by making the ravaged remains of our loved ones the subject of Internet sensationalism ... O'Donnell and Reich owed the plaintiffs a duty not to exploit CHP-acquired evidence in such a manner as to place them at foreseeable risk of grave emotional distress.
[6][7]On May 25, 2011, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District ruled that Aaron Reich failed to prove that e-mailing the photographs is covered by the First Amendment.