Lindsay Lohan’s Lawsuit Against “Grand Theft Auto V” Will Proceed

Lindsey Lohan has finally been given the go ahead to proceed with her 2014 lawsuit against the game makers of “Grand Theft Auto V.” She claims they used her likeness without her consent to create one of the in-game characters.

Lohan alleges that the game’s publisher Take-Two Interactive “unequivocally” referenced her when creating the character Lacey Jonas.

So how much of a resemblance does the character have to LiLo?

According to a fan site for the game, Jonas’ character is described as a spoiled young blonde starlet famous for her work in high school movies, who spends most of her time in the game trying to evade the paparazzi. She’s also described as being “full of herself” and very “image-conscious.”

The amended complaint filed by Lohan alleges that the game also references her star role in “Mean Girls” and the West Hollywood hotel where she once lived. Lohan also claims that the publishers “used a look-alike model to evoke [her] persona and image” by imitating a bikini-clad photo of her that was taken in 2007.

You can see the similarities in the images below.

Can’t imagine why anyone thinks GTA’s ‘Lacey Jonas’ was based on Lindsay Lohan. http://t.co/qnZm2QgF23 pic.twitter.com/hiefD3vENP

— HuffPostUKTech (@HuffPostUKTech) August 28, 2014

New York Supreme Court Judge Joan Kennedy dismissed a motion on Friday filed by Take-Two and its subsidiary Rockstar Games, which hoped to prevent Lohan from moving forward in the case.

Take-Two had argued that Lohan’s complaint was frivolous and she was suing the company purely for the publicity. In an attempt to discredit Lohan, Take-Two tried to prove the actress has a history of filing misappropriation suits, citing her lost suit against Pitbull over a rap lyric as evidence, and that the lawsuit was filed too late.

However, Judge Kennedy rejected the claim stating,

Defendants have not been able to prove, at this juncture of the litigation, that the republication exception to the one year statute of limitations is not applicable to this case because the intended audiences were the same as those of the original publication and the images consistently remained the same.

Judge Kennedy’s verdict can be read in full here.

In many ways, Lohan’s lawsuit bears of a lot of resemblance to a similar dispute between Activision Blizzard, the makers of the hit “Call of Duty” series, and former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Noriega tried to sue to the company over a character in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, whom he says was based on him, but the lawsuit was thrown out in 2014.

The judge in that case ruled “Noriega’s right of publicity is outweighed by defendants’ First Amendment right to free expression.”

This recent win for Lohan is small victory for the star who’s had her fair share of losses in the courtroom. It’s not hard to see why Lohan would think she and the character bear a resemblance. Still, there’s no telling how the case will play out in the courtroom.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.