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She appears to have been taken advantage of, signing an agreement in a foreign language that contradicted the clear verbal agreement. She should have better representation at the time, to be sure, but the fact that the confusing written agreement was in clear conflict with the very simple verbal agreement ought to tell us something about her intentions. Letter of the law over its spirit. I'm also not sure that the photographer's agreeing to a verbal contract that contradicts the written one isn't fraud.

It's pretty well-established law that written contracts supercede and void any verbal ones. Taking the terms of an agreement someone signed over the terms claimed in a verbal agreement is a no brainer.

A verbal contract is not worth the paper it's printed on.

I'm not really disagreeing with you. I believe in laws. I'm just not sure that she wasn't taken advantage of due to her language problem. The judge didn't think so, but I don't always trust their, um, judgment.

If she was assured that the pictures could only be used for one purpose, and that is admitted by all parties, I'd call it a "verbal rider" to the written contract. Don't think I'm somehow advocating an overthrow of contract law with that statement.