NEW YORK -- A judge has dismissed a lawsuit by two photographers who said they were shot at by bodyguards of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
The April 2009 incident occurred during a party in Costa Rica celebrating the celebrity couple's marriage two months earlier.
Photographers Yuri Cortez and Rolando Aviles and the news agency Agence France Presse charged in the lawsuit that the guards shot at the photographers and narrowly missed their heads. The lawsuit originally was filed in federal court in New York, then in Manhattan state Supreme Court.
Bundchen owned a Manhattan apartment before her marriage, but Justice Judith Gische said in her ruling that the model had sold it by the time the lawsuit was filed in November 2009. So, the judge said, neither Brady nor Bundchen lives in New York and the lawsuit against them doesn't belong in the state. She said the matter "would be better adjudicated in Costa Rica."
The judge's ruling was made public Tuesday.
Attorney John Gleason, who represents the photographers and AFP, said the plaintiffs were studying the decision to see if there are grounds to appeal to a higher court.
Gleason said the plaintiffs chose not to sue in Costa Rica because the courts are too slow there.
"I was told it often takes 10 years for a civil case to be concluded," he said.
Brady has won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, and Forbes magazine says Bundchen is the highest-paid model in the world. The couple have said their main residence is in Massachusetts, where they are raising their infant son, Benjamin.
An attorney for Brady and Bundchen didn't immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment Wednesday.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press
