Industry News


Judge Orders Photographer Pay $22K After Failing to Deliver Wedding Images More Than 6 Years Later

August 13, 2021

By Hillary K. Grigonis

© Depositphotos

A judge in Surrey, B.C. has ruled that a former photographer pay several thousand dollars after he failed to deliver images more than six years after a couple’s wedding. In the court ruling against the photographer last month, the judge awarded $22,000 to couple Kaman and Ramandeep Rai, also ordering the photographer to turn over the RAW files as well as childhood images the couple had given to the photographer to construct a slideshow.

The Rais said that the photographer, Aman Bal, had not delivered the final products for their $8,500 package for their 2015 wedding. The couple said that they sent multiple messages to the photographer and said that they would pay the remaining $3,500 balance once the final images were ready.

[Read: Controlling Your Liability When Your Photo Gear Fails at a Wedding]

Bal claimed that he didn’t deliver the final products because the couple hadn’t made the final payment. Judge Valliammai Chettiar ruled against Bal, in part for inconsistencies in his assertions. The judge noted that the photographer had been involved in five other lawsuits since 2011. She said that Bal had a “pattern of deceitful behavior” and during the case was “evasive.” The judge noted that Bal said that the wedding images were ready the day of the wedding, yet in emails the photographer told the couple they would be ready “in the next couple of months.”

The judge also called the photography contract “an utterly incomprehensible document.” The contract was signed under Elite Images, Bal’s now defunct company, but not signed with Bal’s name. The company, Elite Images, was dissolved “for failure to file annual reports,” the case notes. The judge also took issue with the fact that Bal said he was not in the photography business anymore, but still had an Elite Images social media page with more than 10,000 followers. Bal claimed he did not know how to change the page name to his personal name.

[Read: Judge Sides With Photographer in Instagram Embed Lawsuit]

Together with the previous lawsuits, the judge said that Bal’s business had created “a pattern of deceitful behavior that frustrates innocent people to the extreme that they just give up and walk away with whatever they can get back from Mr. Bal.”

The judge’s final decision includes $7,000 to allow the couple to turn the footage into edited video and the images into albums using another photographer. The judge ordered Bal to pay $10,000 for mental distress, as well as $5,000 in damages and paying the $236 in court fees.