A US federal appeals court on Thursday reopened a lawsuit alleging “commercial exploitation of child pornography images” by Spencer Elden, the man who appeared naked on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album when he was four months old.
Spencer Elden claims he suffered permanent damage while the group profited from the image showing him underwater in a swimming pool, seemingly catching a dollar bill on a fishing hook.
A federal judge in California dismissed the lawsuit last year but allowed the plaintiff to seek review of the decision. However, the latter was rejected on the grounds that the ten-year statute of limitations had expired in this case.
New publication, new damage, according to the court
The ruling Thursday by a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California reversed that decision and sent the case back to the lower court. The judges ruled that each new publication of the image could constitute new damages with a new statute of limitations.
The panel particularly discussed the image's appearance on the reissue of Nevermind, released in 2021 to mark the album's 30th anniversary. The question of whether the Nevermind album cover meets the definition of child pornography will not be examined in this appeal, the court wrote, according to the New York Times.
In an email to The Associated Press, Nirvana's attorney Bert Deixler called the appeal decision a procedural setback. “We will vigorously defend this meritless case and hope to prevail,” he wrote.
With information from Associated Press and The Canadian Press