Slashdot Mirror
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.
then stop posting shit on the internet.
Yeah its almost as is the Defendant was trying to defend himself by proving the Plaintiff wasn't really injured.
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.
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.