Texas Supreme Court Dismisses Writ Regarding Facebook Discovery
Some time back, I discussed a case where the defendant in a personal injury lawsyit was trying to obtain continued discovery of a plaintiff's Facebook and My Space entries. See my prior post. The Houston trial judge had ruled that after the plaintiff changed her settings to private, the defendant could no longer obtain the entries. The defendant then sought a writ of mandamus to force the trial judge to rule differently.
The Texas Supreme Court dismissed the writ on Sept. 9, 2011, meaning they reject the appeal for an unspecified reason. See Texas Supreme Court site. So, the trial judge's ruling stands: a party cannot continue to seek social media entries after the party changes her settings to privacy.
Well, now the district has settled one case for $610,000. See Chicago
Courts have only just started wrestling with the limits of online freedom in the workplace. A recent decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court provides some guidance. In the case of Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, the former employee left her job. She also left behind her employer issued laptop. On that laptop, she had sent various emails to her lawyer from a private non-work related Yahoo account. The account was password protected. But, the employer's experts were able to retrieve the password and review the emails to the lawyer.