Greeting card depicts woman drinking, smoking

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DAYTON, Ohio (AP) ? Most women are eager to show off their wedding photos. But Michele Hemphill is suing to get a picture of her drinking whiskey and smoking a cigarette in her wedding dress off store shelves.

The photo was taken 22 years ago while Hemphill was with her bridesmaids before her wedding. It's featured on a greeting card with the caption: "Intoxicating Love." Inside it says, "Isn't love intoxicating? Congratulations on your special day."

Hemphill, a mother of three who works at an assisted living community and is active in her church, seeks damages of more than $25,000 for invasion of privacy, publication of private matters, intrusion upon seclusion and slander in her lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

She asks that all copies of the photograph be destroyed and the card be removed from retailers.

Named as defendants are Wallace McNamee of Hilton Head, S.C., who took the photo; CoRBI Corp. of Olympia, Wash., an online digital image company; and Portal Publications Ltd. of Novato, Calif., a greeting card publisher.

Defense attorney David Shough said his clients did not want to comment.

McNamee was on assignment for Newsweek doing a story about families in the Springfield area when he took the picture, which Hemphill never authorized to be used on greeting cards, the lawsuit says. He licensed the photograph to Corbis, which licensed it to Portal in January 2003 for "nonexclusive use on greeting cards and postcards for worldwide distribution for a three-year period," the lawsuit says.

Hemphill learned of the card on July 31, 2003, when a friend received it. The card is available at retailers in the Dayton and Springfield areas, the lawsuit says.

Hemphill's attorney, Richard Schulte, said Portal has removed the picture from its Web site, but not from store shelves.

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