Plastic surgeon provided a woman’s before-and-after photos to a TV station

The woman was happy with the results of her 2006 breast and torso surgery and agreed to a clothed interview – not a naked slideshow.

A TV reporter contacted the doctor, Renato Saltz, and the woman, Conilyn Judge, for a story on how to select a plastic surgeon properly.

“The reporter asked for before-and-after photos of Judge and other patients, which Saltz's office manager provided,” Courthouse News Service reports. “Judge's photos did not show her face, but they did depict her naked body from her neck to her thigh. . . While black bars obscured Judge's breast and pelvis, the reporter identified her by stating, ‘This is Coni before; this is Coni after.’”

Judge sued Saltz for negligence and publication of private facts, among other things.

A district judge ruled against Judge, citing testimony from her ex-husband that she had previously worn a bikini in public. The court stated this history of bikini-wearing prevented her from now claiming "that parts of her body that she had left open to the public eye are now private facts."

The Utah Court of Appeals reversed the decision on June 26.

Judge's business decreased after the program’s airing and she should have a chance to prove in court that the broadcast is to blame for the downturn, the ruling stated.

To discount the bikini evidence, the court provided a parallel example of a young man walking bare-chested and later in life choosing to cover his torso after growing a pot belly.

A man who would take off his shirt at age 20 to play basketball "may swim with his shirt on 30 years later to avoid revealing extra pounds, medical scars and now-regretted tattoos,” the court stated.  Judge similarly "did not lose her ability to argue that whatever parts of her body that bikini revealed were private facts on different days in different contexts.”