Nine professional models sue Goose Creek, South Carolina restaurant Los Altos Taqueria over images used in social media ads: complaint allegations

What was filed

The complaint is Document 1, filed October 21, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division. The case is Sampedro et al. v. Los Altos Taqueria, LLC d/b/a Los Altos Taqueria, No. 2:26-cv-04993, assigned to Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks. It runs 25 pages and demands a jury trial. It is signed by Joshua E. Slavin of The Law Offices of Joshua E. Slavin in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and also lists John V. Golaszewski of The Casas Law Firm, P.C., whose pro hac vice application is listed as forthcoming. The exhibits showing the images are not freely available on the public docket.

The parties

The plaintiffs are Claudia Sampedro, Alana Marie Souza a/k/a Alana Campos, Jessica Hinton a/k/a Jessa Hinton, Jessica Burciaga, Brenda Geiger, Iesha Marie Crespo, Jessica Nichole Rockwell, Katarina Van Derham, and Sara Underwood. The complaint describes each as a well-known professional model who earns her living modeling and licensing her images, and says they live in Florida, California, Georgia, New York, and Washington. It describes the defendant, citing publicly available records, as a South Carolina limited liability company based in Goose Creek, South Carolina, and alleges, on information and belief, that it operates the restaurant Los Altos Taqueria there.

What the complaint alleges

The complaint alleges that the defendant used the restaurant's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to promote it, and that each plaintiff's images were misappropriated and intentionally altered to make it appear that she was an employee there, endorsed the restaurant, or was otherwise associated with it. Each plaintiff says she was never employed there, was never hired to endorse it, never consented, and was never paid. The complaint alleges that in some cases the images came from the plaintiffs' own social media pages, and it attaches the images for each plaintiff as Exhibits A through I.

Claims and relief requested

The nine causes of action are false association under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(A), false advertising under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(B), common law right of publicity, the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act, S.C. Code Ann. § 39-5-10 et seq., defamation, negligence and respondeat superior, conversion, unjust enrichment, and quantum meruit. The prayer asks for actual damages in an amount to be determined at trial, a permanent injunction against using the plaintiffs' images to promote the restaurant, punitive and treble damages under 15 U.S.C. § 1117 and the South Carolina act, and costs and attorneys' fees under the same provisions.