SAN FRANCISCO—The California Supreme Court has ruled that the single-publication rule applies to a claim brought by a Canadian model whose image was used for years on an instant coffee label without his consent.

At issue in Russell Christoff vs. Nestle USA Inc. was how the single-publication rule—which treats an edition of a print source as one publication, giving rise to one cause of legal action regardless of how many copies were printed and where they were distributed—applied when Mr. Christoff’s likeness was used without his permission.

Mr. Christoff posed in 1986 for photographs at a photo shoot arranged by Nestle of Canada. According to the California high court, “16 years later, Christoff saw his face on a jar of Taster’s Choice instant coffee in the United States and discovered that his image had been used without his consent on millions of labels sold internationally for the preceding five years.”

The court noted in its Monday ruling that he “filed the present action for appropriation of his likeness six years after Nestle USA Inc. began using his image on the Taster’s Choice label but less than a year after his discovery.”

After Mr. Christoff sued in 2003, a trial court said the single-publication rule didn’t apply to his case because he was not alleging defamation. The court applied a two-year statute of limitations to his claim and asked the jury “to determine under the discovery rule whether Christoff knew or should have known earlier that Nestle had used his image,” according to the Supreme Court decision. The jury, which decided that Mr. Christoff neither knew nor could have been expected to know that his image was used without his knowledge, awarded him more than $15 million in damages.

A state appellate court overturned the decision, saying the lower court erred in holding that the single-publication rule did not apply to the appropriation of an individual’s likeness. The appellate court further held that the two-year statute of limitations after Nestle first used the label barred Mr. Christoff’s claim.

In its unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court held that the single-publication rule does indeed apply to appropriation of an individual’s likeness, but that the two-year statute of limitations did not apply to Mr. Christoff’s claim.

“Because both parties were prevented by the trial court’s erroneous legal ruling from developing a record concerning whether the single-publication rule applied, we remand the matter for further proceedings,” the California high court said in its ruling.