Kachelmann obtains record damages!

Jörg Kachelmann against the publisher of Bildzeitung for violation of his personality rights in the context of reporting on the 2011 trial in which the weather presenter was accused of raping a former lover. This case was now submitted to the Landgericht Köln for decision.

In 2011, weather presenter Jörg Kachelmann was charged in a widely discussed public trial with having raped his former lover. He was acquitted of this accusation.

In the context of Bildzeitung's reporting on this trial, the weather presenter was, in his view, seriously injured in his general personality rights by the press. Kachelmann accused the Axel Springer Verlag of conducting a smear campaign led by Bild with other publishing houses against him in over 150 articles. In his view, the suspect reporting was no longer covered by the legitimate public interest in information. Rather, the press had engaged in a prejudgement of his person which would also stigmatise him in the future as a woman-hater and someone prone to violence.

Court decision

According to consistent media reports, the Landgericht Köln has ordered Axel Springer Verlag to pay EUR 635,000 to Jörg Kachelmann for the 38-fold serious violation of his personality rights in the context of Bild's reporting on his rape trial.

The court states that Kachelmann was injured in his privacy, his informational self-determination right and his right to one's own image by the disclosure of information about his sex life, by the partial verbatim publication of his SMS and e-mail traffic and by the publication of photographs showing him, for example, during exercise in the correctional facility.

Conclusion

This is the highest damages sum ever awarded in Germany in such a case. Axel Springer Verlag continues to consider its suspect reporting appropriate and has already announced that it will appeal to the Oberlandesgericht Köln.