Lindsay Lohan and Mother Sued by Photographer

Her new movie, Georgia Rule, opened to terrible reviews and an even worse opening weekend, so a lawsuit is the last thing Lindsay Lohan needs. On May 16th, Lindsay Lohan and her mother, Dina Lohan, are being sued by a freelance photographer. The photographer claims that Lindsay hit him with her mother's car in March.

Giovanni Arnold, a New York City freelance photographer, claims to have sustained severe and permanence personal injuries. In addition, he is still receiving medical treatment for both of his knees. The photographer's lawyer, Marc Mauser, says Arnold is seeking unspecified monetary damages for his pain and suffering.

In a police report, Lindsay Lohan told cops that she was driving some friends in her mother's BMW when they arrived to a hotel at 3 A.M. to dodge the paparazzi. After the paparazzi swarmed her car in the valet lane, one of them jumped on the hood of the car. Predictably, the photographers at the scene tell a different story. They allege that one of the photographers was standing in front of the car when Lindsay flipped the car into reverse and then into drive to knock him down. Once the New York Police Department arrived, they allowed her to leave. The photographers threw a fit and forced the police to call Lohan back. Additionally, sources say that as the detectives probed the incident at the scene, they seemed to side with Lohan.

To most that saw the video on TMZ.com earlier in March, it is clear that this photographer is trying to take advantage of Lohan's money. The video shows Lohan lightly bumping into the photographer and then Arnold falling and flailing on the ground as if he had been hit much harder. While many believe Lohan needs to be brought down from her celebrity pedestal, it's no excuse for her to be taken advantage of by the paparazzi.

In the wake of recent pictures of Lindsay snorting cocaine and the lawsuit, Dina Lohan talked to US Weekly for an interview in their upcoming issue. Instead of helping her daughter keep a low profile, however, she excused her behavior as being typical of any young adult. When asked about Lohan's incessant clubbing, Dina passed it off as a fun part of the business. She maintains that her daughter is completely misunderstood.

The Lohans have not yet responded to the lawsuit. Their lawyer, Robert Stephan Cohen, was unavailable for comment, but the mother and daughter have thirty days to respond to the court case.