Still No Rummaging Through Social Media in Discovery

Courts will not ReTweet or “Like” discovery requests for social media that are simply fishing expeditions.

In Salvato v. Miley, the Plaintiff requested the following discovery:

Interrogatory 12

Please identify whether you had any social media accounts and/or profiles including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, you have had at any time from July 5, 2012-February 1, 2013. For each account, please provide the name and/or username associated with the profile and/or social media account, the type of social media account (e.g. — Facebook, Twitter, etc.), the email address associated with the social media account, the dates you’ve maintained the account, and/or whether the account is still active.

Request No. 3

Please produce a copy of any and all electronic communication either sent or received by you through social networking sites, including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, and/or MySpace, between July 5, 2012 — February 1, 2013, that relate in any way to the incident that is described in the Second Amended Complaint. Please exclude any electronic communications that were sent and/or received exclusively between yourself and your attorney.

Salvato v. Miley, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81784, 3-4 (D. Fla. 2013)

The Court held the discovery requests were not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Salvato, at *6-7. The Court explained:

Here, Plaintiff simply contends that the requests are relevant because, “Plaintiff is seeking information about statements that Defendant Brown made about the incident at issue in this case, which could include admissions against interest, and could certainly lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” (Doc. 27 at 7). The mere hope that Brown’s private text-messages, e-mails, and electronic communication might include an admission against interest, without more, is not a sufficient reason to require Brown to provide Plaintiff open access to his private communications with third parties. Indeed, Plaintiff has “essentially sought permission to conduct ‘a fishing expedition’ . . . on the mere hope of finding relevant evidence.” Tompkins v. Detroit Metropolitan Airport, 278 F.R.D. 387, 388 (E.D.Mich. Jan. 18, 2012)(quoting McCann v. Harleysville Ins. Co. of New York, 78 A.D.3d 1524, 1524, 910 N.Y.S.2d 614 (N.Y. App. Div. 2010)). A party “does not have a generalized right to rummage at will through information that Plaintiff has limited from public view.” Id.

Salvato, at *6-7.

Bow Tie Thoughts

Requests for social media, text messages and other ESI must be narrowly tailored and not a rummaging expedition at a garage sale.

“Hoping” a text message or social media wall post exist does not make them a reality. With that said, it is a challenge to draft a more specific discovery request without knowing who the Defendant communicated with regarding the incident in the lawsuit.

Discussing possible custodians, whether they communicated by email, text, or social media, is an excellent meet and confer topic. Another good pointer is to narrow the time period, which the request at issue in this case did do.

If a requesting party is after specific social media communications, requesting messages or postings from specific dates, stated topics and between named individuals are factors to make a request narrowly tailored. For example, a party in an auto accident may take a photo of the car damage on Instagram (which would be odd, but possible). Instead of requesting all social media photos, requesting any photos taken the day of the incident would certainly be one way to acquire the discovery.