Social Media – Page 2 – Electronic Discovery Law

Brown v. SSA Atlantic (S.D. Ga. 2021)

Mar 16 2021

Key Insight: Defendant filed a motion to compel and for sanctions regarding plaintiff’s failure to identify and produce Facebook account information. Plaintiff had deleted or deactivated and failed to disclose the existence of his multiple Facebook accounts. The court found that the ESI was not “spoliated” since plaintiff only deactivated, not deleted, his Facebook accounts. However, the court found plaintiff’s conduct “troubling” and ordered plaintiff to produce account data for each Facebook account he maintains or maintained, whether deactivated or not, and if defendant finds that substantive information was lost or destroyed, it could renew its motion for spoliation sanctions.

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: Facebook

Case Summary

Holloway v. County of Orange (C.D. Cal. 2021)

Jan 20 2021

Key Insight: The court granted defendants’ motion for sanctions based on spoliation of evidence based on plaintiff’s deletion of his Facebook account. “Plaintiff had an obligation to preserve his Facebook account, he deleted the account with a culpable state of mind, and the account was relevant to Defendants’ claims.” The court further ordered that an adverse inference jury instruction was appropriate.

Nature of Case: Civil Rights

Electronic Data Involved: Social Media, Facebook

Case Summary

Bruno v. Peak Resorts, Inc. (N.Y.A.D. Jan. 14, 2021)

Jan 14 2021

Key Insight: The trial court granted an adverse inference instruction and the appellate court affirmed, finding that plaintiff engaged in spoliation of evidence when he (1) posted a comment to a blog entry about trail conditions on the mountain on the date of his injuries and then later deleted the comment, and (2) belatedly produced Facebook posts relating to his injuries. Plaintiff failed to provide “accurate representations” regarding his posts. His deleted blog comment related to whether the ski trail where he sustained injuries was open or closed on the day of his accident and its subject matter went directly to defendants’ defenses.

Nature of Case: Negligence; Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: Blog Post

Case Summary

Abedin v. Palominos Osorio (N.Y.A.D. Nov. 12, 2020)

Nov 12 2020

Key Insight: The court granted defendant’s motion to compel the minor plaintiff to sign authorizations to obtain her social media information. “[D]efendant demonstrated that records from [plaintiff’s] Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts were ‘reasonably likely to yield relevant evidence.’” The ESI was relevant to alleged emotional and mental trauma plaintiff suffered as a result of the accident as evidenced by her social isolation and withdrawal.

Nature of Case: Personal injuries

Electronic Data Involved: Social media

Case Summary

Milke v. City of Phoenix (D. Ariz. 2020)

Oct 30 2020

Key Insight: The court dismissed plaintiff’s civil rights action based on spoliation of physical and ESI evidence, and for failure to submit complete and accurate discovery responses. The court previously sanctioned plaintiff for spoliation of evidence and determined that lesser sanctions short of dismissal could not cure the prejudice to defendant. Plaintiff, her agents, and her counsel failed to preserve website and social media sites and took affirmative steps on multiple occasions to destroy the evidence after litigation became reasonably foreseeable.

Nature of Case: Civil Rights Act

Electronic Data Involved: Social media and websites

Case Summary

In re: 3M Combat Arms Earplug Prods. Liab. Litig. (N.D. Fla., Oct. 2020)

Key Insight: In their discovery requests, Defendants sought data concerning the Plaintiff’s use of social media and text messages concerning matters relevant to the litigation. After Plaintiff provided responses to these discovery requests, Defendants filed a Motion to Compel Plaintiff to submit to a forensic examination of his mobile phone. Defendants based their Motion on the arguments of ensuring complete collection of data from the mobile phone, and more specifically, complete data of Plaintiff’s use of social media messaging and text messaging with several parties on said mobile phone.

The Court denied Defendants’ Motion because it found that the electronic stored information (ESI) already produced was complete and/or sufficient due to the Plaintiff already working with an ESI expert to obtain the requested data, particularly from the mobile device. In short, the Defendants’ lacked a sufficient reason to believe that the data already produced was not complete.

Similarly, the Defendants failed to demonstrate that a forensic examination of the mobile device would produce relevant data showing that Plaintiff had a pattern or practice of deleting the above mentioned messages. Moreover, the data produced by the examination would only show that a message was deleted, not when or why the message(s) were deleted, the contents of the message(s), or a pattern of deleting messages. In sum, the Court found that the requested forensic examination would be “disproportionate to the slight importance” it would provide to the litigation.

Nature of Case: Product Liability

Electronic Data Involved: Cellular Phone, Text Messages, Social Media, Social Media Messages,

Case Summary

Maurice v. Allstate Insurance Co. (W.D. Wash. 2020)

Jul 28 2020

Key Insight: Defendant had a Motion to Compel Plaintiff to produce information and documents regarding physical and emotional injuries that she purportedly sustained during the accidents giving rise to litigation.

Among the information sought by Defendant were documents and information regarding the negative impact a motor vehicle accident on her social life, hobbies and activities. This included communications, emails, text messages, photographs, video and Facebook posts. Defendant’s Motion was granted, however, Defendant’s request for attorney’s fees and expenses was denied.

Nature of Case: Insurance Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, Text Messages, Photographs, Video and Facebook Posts

Case Summary

Denson v. Corp. of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (D. Utah, 2020)

Jun 29 2020

Key Insight: Plaintiff’s explanation regarding loss of evidence had changed and court ruled that defendant was entitled to have a third party collect and preserve the evidence. Plaintiff offered passwords to accounts, but court was concerned about possible destruction given Plaintiff’s changing explanation regarding social media accounts and recording.

Nature of Case: Sexual Assault

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic Devices and Cloud Based Accounts; Recording of conversation

Keywords: invasion of privacy, loss of evidence

View Case Opinion

Crossman v. Carrington Mortg. Servs., LLC, (M.D. Fla. May 4, 2020)

May 04 2020

Key Insight: Defendant moved to compel social media discovery from plaintiff. The court considered plaintiff’s objections based on relevancy, privacy, and vagueness. Plaintiff did not assert a proportionality argument. The court found that the discovery was relevant – “common sense dictates that information in [plaintiff’s] social medial . . . relates to her contemporaneous mental and emotional states and therefore relates to the injuries she claims she suffered at the hands of [defendant], including loss of enjoyment of life.” As to privacy, a confidentiality agreement suffices to protect plaintiff’s interests. As to vagueness, plaintiff’s counsel can “reasonably and naturally” interpret the requests in view of the claims and defenses through communication with opposing counsel. Lastly, an award of expenses was unwarranted since “reasonable minds can differ on the dispute.”

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Social Media

Case Summary

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