In Court? Be Careful What You Post On Facebook

mbone writes "Going to court? Seeking damages for injuries? Be careful what you post on Facebook (and, presumably, elsewhere). In the first case of its kind (analyzed in the Courtroom Strategy blog), a Suffolk County, NY Judge allowed a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit to obtain access to the Facebook profile of the plaintiff suing them, saying 'Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.' You have been warned. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but I would expect this to become common." Readers might be reminded of the Canadian case reported last year of a woman whose cheerful Facebook pictures led an insurance company to yank coverage.

Comments

if you dont want anyone on the internet to know

[sakura the mc]

then stop posting shit on the internet.

Re:if you dont want anyone on the internet to know

[TheRaven64]

But Facebook has all sorts of privacy controls so that only my friends can see stuff!

Re:The Plaintiff?

[boxwood]

Yeah its almost as is the Defendant was trying to defend himself by proving the Plaintiff wasn't really injured.

Re:bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a personal injury case. The plaintiff has put their health at issue. By going to the courthouse and claiming that your health was injured you've put your health at issue and the opposing side is given more power to find out about your health.

These slashdot stories about the screwed up law are often the real bullshit here. If we had a story about someone on facebook sending messages suggesting that she wasn't really injured, and then the court didn't allow that evidence into a personal injury hearing, then you'd all be screaming about how stupid the court is.

Re:bullshit

[causality]

Uh no.

If I tell all my friends that I'm faking my injury, and the person or company I'm suing hears of it, they can put my friend on the stand and my friend has to tell the court what I said, or risk being charged for perjury.

The company can even hire a PI and can submit photos of you doing activities that you wouldn't be able to do if you were uninjured, as long os the PI doesn't break any laws in getting them.

The courts have always been able to do this, and they've always been able to subpoena things like phone records and emails. Why should it be any different for facebook?

Bottom line, don't sue someone for personal injury if you're not really injured.

I always find it amusing whenever there's a story that sums to "social networking sites are like everything else you have ever experienced in your life -- irresponsible/thoughtless use can bite you in the ass" and the people involved seem shocked to discover this.

Re:The Plaintiff?

[x_IamSpartacus_x]

I agree with you and think this isn't that big of a deal.

I've tried to look into the details of this and this is what I've come up with.
A woman named "Romano" is suing Steelcase Inc for some kind of personal injury and is seeking damages to pay her for "loss of enjoyment of life". The judge granted Steelcase Inc the ability to look into Romano's personal files to show that she's not telling the truth in her claims of injury "especially her claims for loss of enjoyment of life". Here's the court order.

The present application was brought on by Order to Show Cause. The Court has reviewed the submissions both in favor of and in opposition to the relief sought, as well as the applicable federal statutory law, specifically the Stored [*2]Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., which prohibits an entity, such as Facebook and MySpace from disclosing such information without the consent of the owner of the account (see, 18 U.S.C. 2702(b)(3); Flagg v City of Detroit, 252 FRD 352 [ED Mich 2008]).

In the "Stored Communications Act 18 U.S.C section 2701 subsection (a) article (1) basically says you can't go snooping around in other people's facebook/myspace/emails but subsection (c) article (3) says section 2703 shows some exceptions. Here's 2701.
Hop over to section 2703 and in subsection (b) article (1) subsection (B) subsection (ii) says you can get a court order as long as you follow article 2703 subsection (d) which give the rules for a court order. Basically if the plaintiff “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation” then they can go for it.
Now the only thing that I can see that can derail this is if this isn’t a criminal investigation. Otherwise this isn’t a revolutionary ruling and it’s completely within the bounds of the letter of the law.
Here's 2703.

If you’re going to sue someone for personal injury don’t post things online that contradict what you’re claiming in court. Not that hard to figure that out.

Re:This is a disaster

[Americano]

Facebook's privacy policy specifically states the following:

Facebook is about sharing information with others — friends and people in your communities — while providing you with privacy settings that you can use to restrict other users from accessing some of your information. We share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you, reasonably necessary to offer our services, or when legally required to do so.

Further on, in the context of "when we might share your data:"

To respond to legal requests and prevent harm. We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards. We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.

And still further down:

Risks inherent in sharing information. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share on Facebook will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on Facebook. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software.

In other words: If it's a secret and needs to remain so, you don't share it with your 20 closest Facebook friends on the Internet, because you have no reasonable expectation that those people (or others who manage to get elevated access privileges) will keep your secret safe. The court's reasoning is entirely consistent with the privacy policy Facebook has laid out. As far as "if you put it online, even for only one person to see," yes, and that's always been the case. A subpoena can (and often will) result in this information being disclosed, and anybody who thinks that Facebook is magically exempt from subpoenas because "it's a social network with a privacy policy and stuff," is foolish.

Re:bullshit

[rickb928]

In the 80s, a good friend of mine retired from police work and went into PI work for insurance companies. He related one of his early close calls to me...

He went out into the woods a bit to videotape a man who was collecting worker's comp for a back injury for a few years. He taped him for a half hour chopping wood in his backyard. After a moment's break looking around (it was deer hunting season), the subject put down the axe, walkd over and picked up his rifle, and looked to be sighting a deer.

My friend is still taping, and he zooms in for a moment, sighting right down the scope. He can see the subject's eye in the scope.

The first round hit 2 feet to his right. He moved out.

The subject spent the next two weeks looking for my friend. At the next administrative hearing, he got to see the tape. My friend is a patient and kind man. He offered to refuse to testify at a trial for attempted murder if the subject gave up his claim and went back to work. Sadly, the subject balked, and went to jail for aggravated assault. And this cost him his job. Apparently, at the nearing, he railed on about how the PI was trespassing. He was filmed from a public logging road.

BJ went on a long career catching people doing all kinds of bad things. His PI work turned his opinion of people sour much more than his police work did. He was even more disappointed at the things people would do for just money, and not very much at that.

Discovery sucks, but being guilty sucks more.

Re:This is a disaster

[Americano]

Who's "setting public policy"?

The court is looking at the facts of the matter before it: The plaintiff posted some stuff on Facebook, and the defendant has requested access to that stuff, claiming that it is relevant to the case. This request might be denied if there were sufficient privacy concerns to show that the request would violate the defendant's reasonable expectation of privacy.

The court looks at the type of service (social networking, a public space where people connect with one another); the privacy policy of the site (which states that FB "cannot control the actions of other users [ . . . and . . . ] cannot ensure that information you share on FB will not become publicly available"); From this, he draws a conclusion that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy for posts made on Facebook.

Please explain why you WOULD have a *reasonable expectation* of privacy, in light of the fact that Facebook specifically tells you that anything you post could be revealed to the public? You may have a deep *desire* for privacy... you may wish very hard for it, in fact, but Facebook specifically and completely disavows any responsibility for keeping your secrets.

You: "I really want someplace online where I can store my deepest darkest secrets, and I think Facebook is the place to do it."
Facebook: "Well, anything you post here could be revealed to the public."
You: "But you have these privacy controls!"
Facebook: "Yes, but they're not guaranteed to work properly, and besides, if you share your secrets with friends, they can share them with anybody else without your permission."
You: "I don't care. I want to poke people."
Facebook: "Okay... but just so long as you're clear that everything you say or post could end up being revealed to the public."
You: "Yeah yeah, I know, everything I say is private."
Facebook: "No, that's not what we said at all. That's completely the opposite of what we said, in fact."
You: "LOL FARMVILLE!"