Citing a “substantiated excuse” of law office failure, a state appeals court has reversed a lower court’s dismissal of what is believed to be the first lawsuit lodged under New York City’s “revenge porn” law, which was instituted in 2018.

The opinion from the Appellate Division, First Department court reinstates the civil action launched by Dr. Spring Chenoa Cooper, who is a City University of New York public health professor, against her former boyfriend, Ryan Broems. In her suit, Cooper alleges that after breaking up with Broems he harassed her and in 2018 began posting a series nude and sexually intimate pictures and videos of her on Tumblr while linking her CUNY and social media profiles, according to the complaint and news reports.